Waterproofing your basement can be an expensive job when you call the wrong company. There are many businesses out there that will promise you the heavens only because they want the sale. After the contract is sign and payment has been arranged, nothing that was said before matters. Checking the BBB and satisfied customers, you can hire a company with a long reputation of excellent customer service and a great standing at the Better Business Bureau to fix your basement. Is it better to hire a local company vs. a national brand? You be the judge. Follow the links below to read more about waterproofing.
BYU research in waterproofing surfaces
PROVO, UTAH
An observer to a lab in one of the basement rooms on the Brigham Young University campus might wonder why mechanical engineering students and faculty are shooting water with different intensities and quantities at various surfaces in the room.
But it is from those tests that researchers are developing super-hydrophobic — extremely waterproof — surfaces that have the potential to help many industries throughout the world.
“[The lab is] fun, but definitely a work space,” said Julie Crockett, who is an associate professor in BYU’s mechanical engineering program.
Professor Crockett and her colleague, Dan Maynes, who is also a professor and the Mechanical Engineering Department chairman, have spent the past few years studying water and how it attaches — or doesn’t attach — to surfaces.
Through their research, they have figured out how to make surfaces more waterproof by analyzing water as it hits different surfaces. Recently, they have figured out how to make water hit the surface, ball up and then bounce off.
Inside Vs. Outside Waterproofing For Your Home’s Basement or Building’s Foundation
Home basement and foundation leaks can only get worse over time, so it’s to your benefit to address such water problems immediately – but the methods of waterproofing require an expert waterproofing contractor’s skill. What follows is an overview of inside versus outside waterproofing and the processes involved, as provided by RCC Waterproofing in Toronto.
Interior waterproofing is done because the leaking area cannot be accessed from the exterior, likely because of restricted space. An existing water problem in your basement is not necessarily a foundation leak but might in fact be a hydrostatic pressure problem, meaning that ground water under the concrete rises and falls, making water penetrate the basement slab.
Some situations can’t be addressed through external excavation. In such cases, RCC Waterproofing employs an internal water control system, which uses an air-gap drainage membrane to direct the flow of water to a network of drainage tiles installed below the basement floor. The process for creating an interior drainage system is as follows:
1. The floor is broken around the perimeter in which the system is needed, about 6 to 10 inches from the foundation wall.
Local company picks up mess left by national brand
LOUISVILLE, KY (WAVE) – When is a lifetime warranty, not really forever? One Louisville woman found the answer out the hard way. Now, a local company is stepping in to clean up the mess left behind by a national brand.
Champion Waterproofing came to Tyfiani Chandler’s house to do a job Olshan Foundation Repair said they could not, and the help came not a moment too soon.
Her basement was leaking even though she paid Olshan Foundation Repair more than $7,000 to waterproof it.
The work, done in 2004, came with a lifetime warranty.
When Chandler called the 1-800 number on the website to get Olshan to fix the new leaks the number was disconnected.
Olshan OKI, which served customers in Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana, was out of business.
An Olshan spokesperson in Texas said since each location is incorporated as an individual company within that state and not a franchise of the national brand, Chandler’s warranty was only good in Kentucky. Meaning none of the other Olshan locations around the country would honor it.
Chandler was out of luck and on her own until Champion Waterproofing saw our story.
