- Water at the joint where the wall meets the floor
- A damp or dark patch on the wall that returns after heavy rain
- Water appearing on the floor with no crack anywhere near it
- White chalky deposits on the concrete where water has dried
- A musty smell that never fully clears
- Rust on the bottom of appliances, shelving or storage boxes
- Buckled flooring or stained drywall in a finished basement
- A sump pump running far more often than it used to
Basement Waterproofing in Southeastern Michigan
Water Is Getting In. The Question Is Where From.
Poured and Block Foundations — Residential, Commercial & Industrial
Water in a basement always has a path. A crack in a poured wall. Mortar joints in a block wall. An open rod hole. The seam where the chimney footing meets the house. Or ground water arriving at the footing with nowhere left to go.
Poured, block, stone and brick foundations all leak, and none of them leak the same way. The repair follows the path and the wall type, which is why nothing gets quoted before somebody looks at it.
Below is what actually causes each one, and which of the four repairs it calls for.
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BASEMENT WATERPROOFING
A Solution for Every Basement Water Problem
What a Wet Basement Looks Like
What a wet basement actually looks like
Why Basements Leak in Southeastern Michigan
Nothing about the house changed. What was protecting it wore out.
The soil never stops working on it
Southeastern Michigan sits on clay. Clay holds water rather than passing it, and it swells and shrinks against the foundation every year. After a long rain or a spring thaw the ground stays saturated for days and presses.
The original damp proofing has a service life
Every foundation was coated on the outside when it was built. On a house from the sixties or seventies that coating is decades past doing its job. Once it stops shedding water the wall begins passing moisture, and where parging was applied over block, stone or brick, it cracks and separates so water works in behind it.
The drain tile has usually failed
Depending on when the house was built there may be drain tile at the footing. Where there is, it often no longer works the way it once did:
It collapsed. Old clay tile is laid in short lengths and crushes or shifts under load.
It came out of alignment. Those sections move until the run no longer falls in one direction.
Iron ochre choked it. High iron content in the ground water builds a rust-coloured sludge inside the pipe, narrowing the bore the way plaque narrows an artery.
Tree roots found it. Roots seek water, and a perforated pipe full of it is what they are looking for.
Where there was never drain tile at all, the water always had nowhere to go and something else tipped it — grading, a downspout, work next door, or a wetter run of years.
Seeing a Wet Spot You Can’t Explain?
A look at the wall will tell you whether the water is coming through an opening, arriving at the footing, or both — and what your foundation is built from changes the answer.
It is free, and it is the only way to know which of the four repairs you are actually dealing with.
Call Now: 586-465-5500 or Request a Free Assessment Online
Which Repair Do You Need?
One question sorts almost every wet basement in this area.
Where is the water showing up — at the floor, or on the wall?
At the floor
Water at the wall-to-floor joint, or coming up through the slab, means ground water is reaching the footing faster than anything is carrying it away. The wall is not the problem.
That is a drainage repair — interior drain tile from inside, or exterior waterproofing if the outside face of the wall needs work as well.
On the wall
Water tracking down the face of the wall is coming through an opening — a crack, a rod hole, an i-beam pocket or a window pocket — or through mortar joints and block cores if the wall is block, stone or brick.
Depending on the wall and what is outside it, that calls for exterior waterproofing — or in some cases curtain grouting, which reaches the outside of the wall without excavation.
Around the chimney
A chimney sits on its own footing and is a poured wall in its own right, so it leaks at the footing seam, at cracks, and at rod holes. From inside it reads as an ordinary wall leak.
Not Sure Which One You Need?
Call Now: 586-465-5500 or Request a Free Assessment Online
Why Choose Suburban Basement for Waterproofing
A wet basement starts with finding where the water is getting in. That sounds obvious, and it is the step most often skipped.
We are not a dealer for anybody’s system
Most of the large waterproofing companies here are franchises or dealer networks, so every recommendation routes back to the one product line they are licensed to sell.
We are independent. Interior drain tile, exterior excavation, curtain grouting, crack injection, chimney foundations — all of them get installed here, so none of them is the default answer.
Poured, block, stone and brick
Block and poured are the two we see most. They leak differently, and a company that only knows one of them will treat your wall like the one it knows.
Sometimes the honest answer is smaller than you feared. If your problem is grading or a downspout, that is what you will be told.
- The repair is chosen for the wall, not for a product line
- We install every method, so none of them is the default
- Free on-site assessment before anything is quoted
- Lifetime transferable warranty on most repairs
- Over 20 years on Southeastern Michigan foundations
Experience the Suburban Basement Difference
Call Now: 586-465-5500 or Request a Free Assessment Online!
Frequently Asked Questions
How much does it cost to waterproof a basement?
It depends entirely on which repair your wall needs, and the four are not close in price. A crack sealed from inside and a full exterior excavation are different orders of magnitude. That is why nothing is quoted before somebody looks at the wall, and why the assessment is free.
Is basement waterproofing covered by insurance?
Usually not. Most policies exclude gradual water intrusion and earth movement, which covers almost everything in this category. Sudden events are sometimes treated differently. Your policy is the only place that answer exists.
Can you waterproof a finished basement?
Yes. The question is what has to come out to do it. Interior drain tile means opening the floor at the perimeter, and for the wall membrane to run its full height, the finished walls along that run need to come down.
Where the finished space includes a kitchen, a shower or a bar area against the foundation wall, we usually recommend repairing from the exterior instead. It is more work outside, and it leaves everything you built inside untouched.
How long does the work take?
Crack and rod hole repairs are usually same-day. Interior drain tile typically runs one to three days depending on the perimeter. Exterior excavation depends on depth, length and access.
Do you have to dig up my yard?
Only for exterior waterproofing. Interior drain tile, curtain grouting and crack repair are all done without excavation.
I had this repaired before and it came back. Why?
Usually because the repair addressed the wrong path. A crack injection seals that crack permanently, but if ground water is also reaching the footing, water keeps appearing and the crack repair gets blamed. Two problems, two repairs.
