If you’ve noticed damp walls or floors or a musty smell in your basement, you probably have a water problem.
Wet basements are no joke, and the resulting mess nearly always worsens over time, creating a breeding ground for mold and wrecking underground living spaces. You’re going to want to deal with the problem as quickly as you can, understandably. But before you rush to outsource the job to a professional waterproofing company — which may propose an expensive interior drain system you don’t really need — there are some other things you can try.
Here’s what you need to know about water in basements, what you can do about it and how to avoid overspending.
Sitting in a bowl
To understand why leakage occurs, think about how a house is constructed. The first step is to dig a hole. The house built inside this bowl doesn’t quite occupy the entire space, and the soil added to fill it in will always be less dense than the surrounding area. If nothing more is done, that hole will fill with lots of water whenever it rains.
Builders can keep that less-dense soil from getting inundated with rainwater by creating a graded slope next to the foundation walls, forcing rainwater to flow away from homes. But after five or 10 years, almost every house ceases to have a “positive” grade; that is, the surrounding dirt no longer slopes away from the foundation. When this happens, water begins to run toward the foundation, accumulate, sink into the backfill, seep through existing cracks and perhaps apply sufficient pressure to create even larger cracks. In older homes, the tar used to waterproof exterior walls disintegrates over time and leaves homes even more vulnerable.
What you can do about water in your basement
Because most basements get wet due to a drainage problem outside, the best way to avoid a basement moisture problem is to force rainwater away from your home.
Start by checking and fixing your gutters. Clean them out, patch any holes and make sure they slope toward downspouts and have not come loose from the house, allowing water to fall directly from the roof to the ground next to walls. Test gutter downspouts to make sure they spill water at least four feet away from the house.
You can extend downspouts for less than $20 each; gutter repairs are more expensive. But these improvements are worth the price, even if they do not fully solve your water problem.
The next step is to inspect the soil around your house and regrade it if necessary. This is a job you can do yourself, or you can call a drainage expert or landscaper.
The earth around your house should slope at least one inch per foot going away from your house for about six to eight feet. The grading material should consist of fill soil with a clay content of 20 to 30 percent. Don’t use sandy soil or soil containing a lot of organic matter; it will not shed water adequately.
Before adding dirt around your foundation, rake out all the old mulch, leaves and ground cover. If you just spread dirt over them, they will create a shelf that catches water. Solving the problem with grading obviously has important advantages. It costs little (dirt is cheap), requires no great skill and should move enough water away from your house to prevent serious damage.
If portions of your yard slope toward your house, you may have to cut a shallow ditch — or swale — to divert water before it reaches the house. A swale is a U-shaped, shallow ditch dug perpendicular to the water flow. Like regrading, it’s a fairly simple job.
Regrading or diverting surface water will solve most basement moisture problems, but it may not always be the best approach. It may cost more than other solutions, like if you have to rebuild an elaborate patio that slants toward your house or if you will have to redo extensive landscaping in the problem area. Furthermore, grading is not a sure cure for leakage problems. Water may be penetrating your basement from places that originate well away from your house. Finally, sometimes regrading is a relatively frail solution; a little careless digging in your garden may produce a new source of leakage just after you have installed a home theater in your basement.
When the job is too big to DIY
If regrading and other surface drainage improvements don’t solve the problem, more drastic — and expensive — solutions await. And unless you’re a deeply committed do-it-yourselfer, you’ll need to hire a pro.
For most homes, the next best approach is to waterproof walls from the outside. This involves digging a trench to the depth of the footings of the affected walls. Drainage pipe installed at the bottom of the trench will collect water that seeps from above and direct it away from your home or into a drainage pit. Cracks in exterior walls are filled with cement, and a vapor barrier is added. Then the trench is filled with tamped-down soil, and the surface area is regraded to improve drainage. Sometimes you will need to install an exterior sump pump to shoot water collected by the drainage pipe up and out of the collection area. Bury the pump deep enough in the ground to protect it from freezing in winter.
Excavating and waterproofing from the outside might be more expensive than installing an interior drainage system with a sump pump. But unlike interior systems, this will solve the underlying problem by diverting water away from walls, rather than simply managing water that enters the home.
If you need to hire a contractor, meet with and obtain proposals from several of them. Some landscaping companies specialize in drainage work. You can get some insight into a company’s performance by checking the ratings and comments posted by area consumers at Checkbook.org. (Washington Post readers can access ratings of D.C.-area basement waterproofing companies free until Dec. 15 via Checkbook.org/WashingtonPost/wet-basement.)
Checkbook’s undercover shoppers noted big differences in the quality of advice provided by basement waterproofing contractors. Different companies may propose drastically different — and in some cases costly and unnecessary — solutions. Don’t let them pressure you into a decision; avoid companies that use aggressive sales tactics.
Compare the guarantees offered. When choosing any contractor, check the payment schedule: It should allow you to pay most or all the cost after completion, giving you leverage to make sure the job is done promptly and neatly. The best arrangement is to hold final payment until after the first heavy rain so you can find out how well the job holds up.
If your home was built or remodeled within the last few years, check the builder’s warranty for clauses on seepage. The builder might bear the costs of any solutions and repairs.
Kevin Brasler is executive editor of Washington Consumers’ Checkbook and Checkbook.org, a nonprofit organization with a mission to help consumers get the best service and lowest prices. It is supported by consumers and takes no money from the service providers it evaluates.
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