Keeping Your Basement Dry

There a number of reasons why your basement won't stay dry. You must start looking for the more obvious reasons first and then work your way towards the most improbable reasons that would explain why your basement is always wet. You might be surprised on the reasons why your basement always gets wet. Your lawn probably is too flat or slopes towards the house which allows the water on the surface to trickle down the walls of your basement. Or you might have defective, clogged, or nonexistent gutters and downspout. These things will make puddles or wet soil near or against basement walls.

The water from these puddles can seep through the cracks or openings in the walls. Even a very dense shrubbery can cause constant moisture to be present in your basement. Make sure that the basement has good enough ventilation. Sometimes, having unprotected basement windows can cause water from heavy storms to enter through the window frames.

Leaks from the plumbing or from wet clothes hung to dry in the basement can increase condensation in the small space which would explain why walls and floors are moist or wet.

Each of these problems has their own solutions. It is just a matter of finding out which problem your basement has. However, there are some general precautions that you could incorporate to ensure that your basement walls and floors are protected from water. One thing that you could do is apply waterproofing compounds to the inside walls. These waterproofing paints or other interior compound can stop minor cases or mild and occasional condensations or even seepage that occur on your basement walls. Each product has their own sets of instructions guides, just follow them carefully.

For the outside walls, however, one can use injections of waterproofing materials between the space of the outside wall and the soil. Sodium bentonite or other substances are used for exterior waterproofing projects. These compounds will swell into many times its dry volume when it is converted into slurry form. The slurry will penetrate and plug cracks where water might get into the insides of your basement.

You might want to hire an expert on this one. There are two major considerations that will make this waterproofing technique a success. First it the type of soil that surrounds the outside wall and second is the skill of the person injecting the slurry. You cannot use the bentonite slurry on clay soils, silt soils or sandy soils that have grains of sand ranging from fine to medium gradation. Chemical like salt could also cause the effectiveness of the bentonite slurry as well as unknown underground barriers like rocks or woods.

There are other ways to waterproof the basement. Some cover the walls with waterproofing felt or fabrics. They cement them together with hot coal-tar pitch. If properly applied, this is a very effective method of keeping the water from seeping through the walls. However, this is rather expensive that other methods.

Others use two coats of portland cement mortar and apply them to the exterior walls. This method is called parging and will work only when done in dry, mild weather. Once the cement has been applied to the walls, it should be allowed to properly cure. Freezing or rapid drying of the concrete could only damage the surface and render it useless.

There is also polyethylene or polyvinyl films that can be used to apply on the exterior basement walls. Or one could install draintile around the footings. You could place the tiles on the specific sides where trouble kept on occurring. This procedure has proven to be very effective at times and you could try this out before those other extreme measures.

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