Title of Question:
water leak in basement
Name:DC City: Aztec
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| Question: WE live in a flat roof stucco southwestern style house in NM. There is a persistent water leak in the basement utility room, but not much water. I have never seen anything like it. I mop up the water and it reappears right away before my eyes! The water is on a concrete floor and confined to one exterior wall corner of the room. There is a gap between the floor and the sheetrock wall, so the wall is dry, thankfully. The front porch is directly above this utility room. We have done the french drain bit , installed gutters, and the ground around the house is sloped properly. My husband says we will have to dig down to the footing to waterprooof the walls, but we don't want to do this, because we will have to dig under the concrete porch and overhang. Digging will cause the porch to settle, and possibly pull the ovehang away from the house since the overhang is supported by pillars that rest on the concrete porch. This will also cost about $20K to repair, and the cost will be more if problems occur. This water is present even when we have a drought and everyone else in town is pryaing for rain!! What can we use to stop this leak from the inside? stop the leak from the inside? I looked at Drylock at the Home Depot, but the can said it's for masonry. The clerks at Home Depot had no answers for me. Please help. This is a beautiful home, it would be our dream home if it weren't for this problem. |
Post Your Answer To The Question Above:
| Answer: A few thoughts. If you think the porch roof is the problem, can you add gutters? This will be much less expensive than digging out the perimeter. If you do that type of waterproofing, however, they don't dig that close to the footing, so the porch should be fine. We had this done on a 3,000 square foot house and it cost about $5,000 for drain tiles and sump pump. This sounds like overkill for your situation, however. Another option is hydrolic cement. Our contractor swears by it. It stops water from coming through cracks and can even be applied when the air is receiving water. Main thing is to figure out the path. Why not get a few estimates and perhaps the contractors can figure out where its coming from? |
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