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Hi all! This is my first time using this forum...
A couple of years ago, a couple of furnace installers said they also happen to repair basement walls from water damage. They suggested we should have the exterior of the house dug out and then they'd apply some big sheets of plastic type material that prevent water damage from the outside. They might have also suggested they repair any exterior cracks at that time too, before putting on the plastic sheet. I don't remember if they also suggested a french drain type of thing but I don't think so. They said that they'd then work on the interior, by loosening up the outer layer of crumbling old cement walls (get the crumbly surface stuff off) and then they'd seal it with some heavy duty grey goop that would get into the pores of the old expanding cement, after which they'd put a final plaster-like layer to finish it off. Others I've talked to have said they were being excessive and that I'd more likely need just one or the other - external or internal work. My problem is that to do the interior-only feels like a band-aid; I don't want to ignore the outside. And the interior can't be ignored regardless.
Also - w/ regard to the interior portion of this - I'm guessing I wouldn't need a sump pump or drainage area around the floor if there's no real flooding on the floor, correct? Or is it a better-safe-than-sorry precautionary thing?
I'm writing too much...ugh...so please only continue reading if you're interesting in knowing more details:
I live in the Northwest and have a 1913 home (I think the earth around us has a lot of clay in it from what I've heard, if that plays a role in any of this). The basement has cement walls and when it's rained a lot the walls begin to seep, for lack of a better word. After serious heavy rain I suppose you'd call it leaking but I've yet to see - after 9 years - any flooding other than perhaps a tiny bit of moisture on the ground near the "seeping" area near a crack. Mostly, the walls have that loose crumbly stuff there all the time that if you hit with a stick, come off in thin-ish sheet-like pieces which in some cases seem to have air trapped behind them like flat bubbles so they come off really easily, or else it just crumbles off like sand/dust (not sure I'm describing this well). It's kinda fun to hit until you realize you should probably stop. ;-) It's certainly not pretty and the basement suffers from mildew needless to say. When I moved in 9 years ago I had a structural engineer look the basement over and while acknowledging the walls' issues he said we didn't have any major "structural" problems.
I think part of this has to do with poor gutter usage and just not having the earth downgrading away from the house enough - but I'm not sure. I'd at the very least like to find a person who will fix the issues re. gutters AND fix get the whole earth/downgrading issue fixed but it seems most either do gutters-only or else serious basement water damage issues only (involving a lot more); can anyone here recommend the type of person who could help me w/ both these issues?
In our back yard we have a cement path between the house and the lawn so it's not possible to dig around there or extend a gutter out cause it would trip people as they walk down the path. And even though there's no dirt there, there IS interior wall seaping and maybe even you could call it leaking there, during heavy rains... so I'm not sure if it's just that the window there isn't sealed well enough or (and?) if there's something more seriously wrong with the exterior walls themselves. We took some sort of caulking device and did a probably lousy sealing job around that window that meets the cement path but I haven't made a point to check and see if it's worked (there's a lot of now-mildewy storage stacked up there!).
Okay sorry for writing so much! Just want to be thorough in case it makes a difference! Thank you so much...
A couple of years ago, a couple of furnace installers said they also happen to repair basement walls from water damage. They suggested we should have the exterior of the house dug out and then they'd apply some big sheets of plastic type material that prevent water damage from the outside. They might have also suggested they repair any exterior cracks at that time too, before putting on the plastic sheet. I don't remember if they also suggested a french drain type of thing but I don't think so. They said that they'd then work on the interior, by loosening up the outer layer of crumbling old cement walls (get the crumbly surface stuff off) and then they'd seal it with some heavy duty grey goop that would get into the pores of the old expanding cement, after which they'd put a final plaster-like layer to finish it off. Others I've talked to have said they were being excessive and that I'd more likely need just one or the other - external or internal work. My problem is that to do the interior-only feels like a band-aid; I don't want to ignore the outside. And the interior can't be ignored regardless.
Also - w/ regard to the interior portion of this - I'm guessing I wouldn't need a sump pump or drainage area around the floor if there's no real flooding on the floor, correct? Or is it a better-safe-than-sorry precautionary thing?
I'm writing too much...ugh...so please only continue reading if you're interesting in knowing more details:
I live in the Northwest and have a 1913 home (I think the earth around us has a lot of clay in it from what I've heard, if that plays a role in any of this). The basement has cement walls and when it's rained a lot the walls begin to seep, for lack of a better word. After serious heavy rain I suppose you'd call it leaking but I've yet to see - after 9 years - any flooding other than perhaps a tiny bit of moisture on the ground near the "seeping" area near a crack. Mostly, the walls have that loose crumbly stuff there all the time that if you hit with a stick, come off in thin-ish sheet-like pieces which in some cases seem to have air trapped behind them like flat bubbles so they come off really easily, or else it just crumbles off like sand/dust (not sure I'm describing this well). It's kinda fun to hit until you realize you should probably stop. ;-) It's certainly not pretty and the basement suffers from mildew needless to say. When I moved in 9 years ago I had a structural engineer look the basement over and while acknowledging the walls' issues he said we didn't have any major "structural" problems.
I think part of this has to do with poor gutter usage and just not having the earth downgrading away from the house enough - but I'm not sure. I'd at the very least like to find a person who will fix the issues re. gutters AND fix get the whole earth/downgrading issue fixed but it seems most either do gutters-only or else serious basement water damage issues only (involving a lot more); can anyone here recommend the type of person who could help me w/ both these issues?
In our back yard we have a cement path between the house and the lawn so it's not possible to dig around there or extend a gutter out cause it would trip people as they walk down the path. And even though there's no dirt there, there IS interior wall seaping and maybe even you could call it leaking there, during heavy rains... so I'm not sure if it's just that the window there isn't sealed well enough or (and?) if there's something more seriously wrong with the exterior walls themselves. We took some sort of caulking device and did a probably lousy sealing job around that window that meets the cement path but I haven't made a point to check and see if it's worked (there's a lot of now-mildewy storage stacked up there!).
Okay sorry for writing so much! Just want to be thorough in case it makes a difference! Thank you so much...
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