Wet basements and foundation walls
A surprising share of wet basements are a gutter and grading problem that gets treated as a foundation problem.
Water gets into a basement from somewhere, and the cheapest fix is usually the one furthest from the basement. Downspouts discharging next to the wall, a blocked gutter overflowing at one corner, ground sloping back toward the house — these cause a lot of what gets diagnosed as a foundation failure.
Once the outside is right, what remains is genuine: cracks that need filling, walls that need parging and sealing, and drainage that has silted up. Sorting the outside first means you find out what the real problem was before spending on the inside.
What this covers
- Working out where the water is actually getting in.
- Foundation crack repair and sealing.
- Parging and coating of foundation walls.
- Elastomeric membrane on exposed exterior foundation.
- Clearing and re-running downspout discharge away from the building.
- Clearing existing French drains where they have silted up.
Worth saying plainly: some wet basements need engineered interior drainage and a sump, which is a different trade. If that is what yours needs, you will be told that rather than sold a coating that will not hold it back.
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