Waterproofing the basement of your home should not be a headache for you. Finding measures to help keep your basement dry should be an activity you engage in every year. Cleaning the gutters of your home to keep the water from accumulating around the foundation is something that can be done easily and without spending any money doing it. Keeping your shrubbery and flower beds away from the foundation can help you keep the water from accumulating and seeping into the basement. Preventing basement flooding is easier when you are proactive and don’t wait for the problem to come knocking on your door. If you need more information about basement waterproofing, call us we will be happy to offer a solution for your needs.
Experts offer solutions to help keep basements dry
After ridding their basements of water from this summer’s endless rains, central Ohio homeowners are embarking on another task: keeping the water from coming back.
The first steps to a dry basement, experts say, should be taken outside the house.
“Ninety times out of 100, the problem can be found on the outside,” said Jeremy Chapman, owner of Chapman Drainage on the West Side.
The most common reason basements leak is that water isn’t pulled away from the foundation by proper landscaping and a functioning gutter and drainage system.
“If the water makes it into the gutter and makes it to the drainage system and out into the street, the basement’s probably going to be dry,” Chapman said.
Homeowners must make sure gutters are property installed and free of debris and that downspouts take water away from the house, ideally through an underground system that empties water into the street or directly into a sewer.
Ryan and Allyson Smith’s ranch-style home in Hillsdale didn’t lie in a flood zone, and the basement didn’t have a sump pump. But “we knew that we had an issue,” Ryan Smith said.
During heavy rains, puddles would appear in parts of the basement, coming up from the baseboard molding, Smith said of the home built in 1954. “We never really found the actual source of it. We just knew it would continue to happen.”
Homeowners have been dealing with wet basements — well, since there have been basements. Water can seep in from cracks in the foundation walls or trickle in from runoff or because of poor property grading. Hydrostatic pressure can push water up through the floor.
Ways to waterproof basements range from a simple sump pump to sealants and vapor barriers to high-tech drainage systems.
The trick is finding the best fit for your home and for your budget.
“Some people are lucky enough to never have a problem, but generally when homes get older, at some point, a home is going to leak and there will be seepage in the house,” said Robert Lindsay, owner and president of Weather-Tite Waterproofing Inc. in Saddle Brook. “Bergen County’s housing stock is quite old. Often, the cement used to seal the exterior of the foundation fails, and water creeps in.”
Cleveland Better Business Bureau warns about basement waterproofing jobs
CLEVELAND – The Cleveland Better Business Bureau is warning consumers to do their homework before signing up for an expensive basement waterproofing job.
Gena Cerasuolo said she paid $7,000 to Buckeye Waterproofing in June, but is still concerned about water and moisture coming up through the basement floor of her Lyndhurst home.
Cerasuolo told newsnet5.com the company came back to her home several times to make revisions, but said she is still worried the job won’t hold up.
“I do, I hold my breath, especially with the rainy month we’ve had in June,” said Cerasuolo. “They’re telling me that the concrete needs to dry, and that I need to give it time to cure, and that it will stop. But I’m not completely convinced of that.”
Cerasuolo and several other northeast Ohio consumers have filed complaints with the Cleveland Better Business Bureau against the company. The company now has a “D” rating.
