About Leaky Basements

Drainpipes

• Having proper rain gutters and drainpipes on your eaves is essential for preventing a leaky basement. When an eaves trough gets clogged with leaves and other debris, it overflows when it rains. Then, water simply pours out down the side of the house. This quickly saturates the ground immediately around the walls of your house. During a heavy rain, this water needs somewhere to go, and it will start finding ways into your home. Regular gutter cleaning and drainpipes that drain water far away from your home solve this problem.

Drainage

• Another problem that causes leaky basements is drainage improperly directed around the exterior of your home. Look for anywhere that water flows toward the house, rather than away from it. If this happens on a driveway, you may need to have someone come in and professionally repair it to drain water away from the home. In the backyard or garden, the addition of heavily packed soil to create a slope that drains away from the home should reduce basement leaks.

External Degradation

• Weather, pressure and temperature can break down the exterior of a house over time. If this happens around the bottom of your house and the top of your foundation, it can cause cracks that allow water to enter into the house. Around the area at the bottom of the house where the foundation meets the walls is an area of weakness. If the external covering breaks down or cracks, it can provide an entryway for water into your basement.

Cracks

• Cracks also appear anywhere along the inside walls or floors of your basement. Cracks have a number of different causes, but wherever a crack appears, water is likely to follow. Use epoxy or a specialized grout for patching cracks to fill the cracks that appear in your basement. Waterproofing with an additional specialized basement waterproofing compound also helps keep water out of the basement.