Basements are great places to store stuff, to find extra room for projects, bicycles, and much more– if they stay dry. You can often expand your home by upgrading your basement for livability– but check permit requirements in your area before you begin. If your basement has exposed wiring, low ceilings, seasonal flooding, or other hazards, it may not be a legally livable space.
Here are some tips for keeping your basement dry:
If you have the money and the yard access, one of the best things to do is install professionally engineered french drains. These are below-ground man-made aquifers or ditches that channel rainwater and runoff away from your home. Basically, contractors dig a deep trench that slopes slightly from top to bottom, and creates an unobstructed path for water to move past your basement, rather than through it. The bottom of the trench will be lined, and have a porous pipe to allow seeping water to drain into it. The pipe will be covered by several inches of gravel, and then dirt will be filled in above it. It’s a more expensive option, but a well-made french drain is the best defense against flooding or invading moisture. You may also want to consider installing a sump pump.
Well-built basements and cement footings are usually sealed with some sort of man-made membrane or coating on the outside of the cement before dirt is in-filled around the outside of the home. These membranes don’t always last the lifetime of the house, though the available materials have improved in recent years. The benefit to keeping leaks outside of the cement is that water and the things that grow in water are corrosive over time. If they get into cracks in your cement and freeze, they can slowly create larger cracks, and threaten the integrity of your home’s foundation.
Older basements often were constructed with a drain built right into the floor. Newer remodels often simply build a new floor a few inches above the actual basement, the same way we use wood pallats to lift stored items off the floor in ground-level storage bays. This doesn’t prevent leaking, but it lifts your property above any standing water. It also creates a perfect space for mold and other toxins to grow.
The last and most popular line of defense is to apply a liquid sealant to the inside of a basement’s wall and floors. It looks and acts like a particularly smelly and thick coat of white paint. This prevents sponge-like transfers of water from seeping through the cement and into your basement or home. However, the walls themselves are still vulnerable if this is the only method of prevention employed. You may want to consult with experts at your local DIY home improvement store for the best solutions to your specific situation.
Before applying the sealant, you need to clean and dry the walls and floor you’re planning to seal. Diluted bleach or an alcohol-based cleaning agent often work quite well, if thoroughly rinsed off after. Commercial cleaners specially formulated for cleaning interior cement walls or foundations prior to re-sealing are available as well. Remember to plan up to two weeks of drying time after washing your surfaces. Try placing half an onion in the space as it dries to discourage new mold. Read your selected sealant’s warnings and directions for the most effective means of preparing the surface you want to seal.
Here is a link to additional information, courtesy of Lowe’s.
