Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Hi. There is a house in Teaneck NJ which we are interested in buying, however it seems to have regular water intrusion into the unfinished basement. I stopped by the house to check it following a recent thunderstorm, and water was trickling into the basement at several locations along the walls and at the floor-wall juncture. There are also many stains on the slab indicating past water pooling. I suspect that water enters every time there is a substantial rain.
The house is vacant, but the current owners have recently installed a sump pump, evidently without French drains. It is clear that some effort was made in the past to install exterior drainage (you can see some exposed PVC pipes and a mud-clogged grate) around the house, but this is not working and the water is still coming in.
So here is the question: Should we run from this house like the plague, or should we assume that all problems have a solution, and wait for an inspector to tell us what the issues actually are? We ultimately need to be able to finish this basement, so we need to be confident that the water intrusion can be solved. Thanks for any tips!
That is bad, but not a deal-killer in and of itself. You may be able to solve the problem with improved drainage/slope/landscaping, but make sure there is no damage already done like mold, rot, ect...
We have a water problem as well. We have spent a lot of time looking into this and researching, interviewing etc.
We learned that the plug the leak solutions are just scams. You cannto waterproof your basement and turn it into a big boat. THe water will just come in somewhere else, and/or cause other damage. You have to get the water away from the foundation.
One solution is to jack hammer up the outer portion of the basement floor slab and lay a drain system on top of the footings, back fill with gravel and place new concrete. The drains need to feed into the sump pump. The makers and installer of the drain material will give you a lifetime guarantee agaisnt leaks at the junction of the slab and wall. This should also drain water away and keep it from building up agaisnt the side of the walls and coming through the walls.
You may need to look at putting in gutters, re-grading or other solutions.
On the other hand, you may have a bigger problem like we do. No one has been able to determine why the water is coming in despite an existing subdrain and sump pump system that appears to be working. One expert speculated that an underground stream may have changed its path and now runs to our basement. He did not have a solution nor did he know how we could determine whether this was the case. We are still trying to find a solution. The drain on the footing is pretty much duplicating what we already have, and the warranty only covers the cost of reaplcing the drain if it fails to work. It does nto cover the cost of removing and replacing flooring, carpeting, drywall, framing, wiring, plumbing, etc etc. That is the real cost of a water problem. Putting a drain system in ir relatively minor (about $10,000 for our basment which is about 1800 s.f., but replacing all of the flooring, carpeting walls etc, will cost a whole lot more than that. If we had to do it a second time, it would be devastating).
SO it depends on what the cause of your problem is and whether anyone can definitively determine that cuase. If it is unknown, then you cna only gamble on what will work.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
