One more time! You cannot stop water from entering a basement by patching cracks or holes. If you could you would be creating a boat.
To keep water out of a basement you must keep the basement out of the water. You do this by draining the water away from the basement with a good weeping tile system and clean sand drainage or you deliberately give the water a place to go like a sump where you pump it away. Either method requires excellent drainage. This is done by excavating to the level of the bottom of the footings all around the exterior of the basement, laying weeping tile and connecting it either to a reliable drain or into a sump then while there you might like to cover the exterior of the basement walls with water proofing. If the climate is cold I suggest wrapping it to ground level with extruded Styrofoam insulation with the seams sealed to help keep some of the cold out then fill over the tile with clean crushed rock or river run snone to about six inch depth then to near grade with clean sand. Then grade the ground to slope away from the building, a top cap of clay will work well or a cement brim like a sidewalk running around the house. If there is no water it can't get through the cracks. Your first decision though might be to determine the quality of the basement. if the concrete isn't structurally sound you may need a new basement poured while the ground is excavated. You certainly can have the cracks filled but not for the primary purpose of keeping water out. ----- Original Message ----- From: Claudia To: [email protected] Sent: Tuesday, March 10, 2009 7:21 AM Subject: [BlindHandyMan] Cracks in Cement Floor! Hi All, When we had this problem of water in our basement back in September of last year, we had several companies come out and give us estimates for repairs. None of them really touched the issue of cracks in the cement floor and how to repair these! What causes these cracks, and what can be done to permanently seal them? Or, does this go back to having to repair foundation damage? This time around, the water is coming in through cracks in the cement floor! My guess is that, with every subsequent rainfall, these cracks probably get bigger, thus increasing our damage potential? We're really at a loss here, as to what to do! My dad could probably loan us the money to get work done on this basement, but he doesn't feel we should put more money into this house, especially on such a large scale, as some of the estimates we received, so I'm hesitant to ask! Claudia Join either of my groups; the first is for visually-impaired women, while the other is for people wishing to discuss homemaking issues. [email protected] [email protected] [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
