The Scoop about Waterproofing your Basement Walls
Wednesday, November 19th, 2008 Subscribe To Our Feed
If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
When you are finishing a basement, waterproofing basement walls is a useful thing to do. Basement walls are the entry point of most moisture creating a high level of moisture in them. Cracks, leaking windows and pipe condensation are probably the most common reasons basements have water build-up problems. You will run into all kinds of issues if you allow too much water retention or allow it to stay for too long.
Basement Wall Options
There are numerous ways of waterproofing basement walls and these include:
- French Drains
- Hollow Baseboard Molding
- Sump Pumps
- Waterproofing
- Damp Proofing
French Drains - An exterior system running the perimeter or partial perimeter of your house for heavy rain run off drainage, or an interior system if water is coming into your basement through the floors or cove between the floor and the wall. An excavation was made inside the drenched basement floor. First you need to position a plastic drain pipe, ready perforated, and then make sure that it is surrounded by gravel or similar The floor over the French drain system is sometimes re-cemented by repair and wet basement waterproofing contractors. A gap is left of between one and two inches in the floor, along the walls, which lets the web wall seepage drain below floor-level into the drain system. A drain that connects to a sump pump is usually the French type.
what might be the possible use of the Hollow Baseboard Molding.is it good enough to adhered or joint for epoxy use? This empty molding will gather wet wall seepage as well as fluid which rises at the cove region. More often than not, linked to a sump pump.
A sump pump is placed in a tub that sits under the floor of your lower lever. Sump pumps can collect underground water through perforations in the sump well in the immediate vicinity of the sump pump. Sump pumps have many uses such as floor drainage and to drain underground drain pipes.
Wall Sealers – Varieties include spray applied basement wall sealers, brush or roller applied basement waterproofing sealers, or panel type basement waterproofing sealers for wet basement walls.
In reality a good drainage system cannot guarantee dry basement walls. We need to evaluate the most economical method to stop moisture from getting in the basement walls and this may be damp proofing and waterproofing.
What is Damp Proofing?
You may be asking yourself what is involved in damp proofing your basement and the best example I can give of damp proofing would be to think of a castle with a moat and think about how to keep the water away from this castle; first you build the permiable pallette layer where you want the castle floor, then you would place a solid layer over that, then you would leave a vent space and lay your foundation; as for your walls, you would build your walls, then do your solid layer and then your permiable layer, and now you have damp proofed your castle.
Proofing products that are moist are usually made of tar in a solvent base. Application is inexpensive but efficiency is limited since they are manufactured to retard and not to prevent moisture penetration. The main problem is that it becomes brittle once it cures and as the foundation settles and hairline cracks appear, the tar based coating will not stretch to bridge the cracks and this allows moisture to penetrate into the basement.
What is Waterproofing?
Waterproofing products are designed to ‘prevent’ water penetration even under wet conditions such as hydrostatic pressure in the soil after heavy rain or spring thaws. Advanced Waterproofing Technologies provides supieor waterproofing protection as the products contain rubber and it allows flexibility when it dries. This flexibility allows the waterproofing membrane to stretch as the foundation settles and bridge small hairline settlement cracks that can occur in the concrete or block.
How to Apply
Clearly waterproofing is a better option and since there is not a huge price difference between that and damp proofing, it seems a more sensible long term choice, especially when it often has a 25 to 30-year guarantee.
In the earlier days builders often did not consider waterproofing the basement walls as important. So now you can fix that with a product anyone can use. Most of the products are safe and easy to apply by the do-it-yourselfer. These are available in 5 gallon pails or 55 gallon drums, as an example, and are ready for use without heat or any specialized equipment - if you can use a brush or a roller, you can use these. You can also utilize a commercially available airless sprayer that can be rented on a daily basis. Two people using rollers to waterproof a basement of about 1,000 square feet can accomplish the task easily in about two to three hours. So get started and begin to enjoy your basement space without the dampness.
Technorati Tags: No Tags
Related Tags: No Tags
Possible Related Posts
Methods for floor waterproofing of the basementKeep The House Comfortable During The Cold MonthsFitting Kitchen Worktops In Bristol
