Wet Basements Part Four

After you carefully examine possible causes for your wet basement and eliminated the more simple causes, you may be facing some more serious costs to cure your problem.

A typical exterior foundation waterproofing job can cost $100 to $125 per foot of exterior, depending on depth and other factors.  When this work is done, shrubs will need to be removed and the basement walls will be excavated to the footers, walls sealed, and a new, modern drainage system installed.  These jobs rarely fail to cure the problem.  As I mentioned earlier, some situations may still exist due to type of construction, ie. the floor has no plastic under it, and some damp may rise up etc.

I would strongly recommend exterior digging to any of the interior based drain systems.  One very large Ohio company that leads the industry in North East Ohio has been known to use strong pressure sales, and if at first the contract is not signed, the price starts dropping from week to week.  Bottom line, look up any company via the Better Business Bureau website, and do some simple Google searches on them.  You can also make an inquiry with your local building dept.  They can offer a lot of help in some instances.  Each dept. policy is different and each inspector is different, but most are quite helpful.

As this is a big ticket decision ranging from five thousand for one wall to prices well into the tens of thousands, you might want to hire a home inspector to assist you with deciding what to do.  I recommend ASHI certified inspectors (American Society of Home Inspectors) as they have no interest in obtaining further work from you- they are your advocate only.  They may charge $150 or so for a consultation, but it is cheap insurance that you're choosing the type of corrective measure you need and not one a salesman wants to sell you.

I'll continue to post on this topic as it is a major problem that is also a major cost to homeowners in our area.

This photo shows a membrane being sprayed on a foundation wall.  The new drainage pipes will be placed in the bottom of the trench, then gravel will be backfilled to within a foot or so of grade.  The photo illustrates the complicated digging- close to the foundation and deep.  This is the reason for the high cost of exterior waterproofing.