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New form of sealing basement walls. What are your thoughts ??

New form of sealing basement walls. What are your thoughts ??


  #1  
Old 10-14-16, 04:06 AM
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New form of sealing basement walls. What are your thoughts ??

I have a guy scheduled to come out this Saturday, and he is going to perform a new method of sealing my basement walls.

He had advertisements on TV, which is how I found out about this.

He has a device / way to run a rod into the ground just on the out side of the basement walls. He then pumps a very wet concrete / slurry into the ground, and in the process this fills all the cracks / crevices where water gets in through the walls, and stops all the water leaks.

Here's his web address.....

Basement Stopleak Of Des Moines, IA - Home

The cost for my home is $2,700 to do 95' of my basement foundation.

This has a lot of benefits, compared to the standard ways of fixing wet basements. He states that if any leaks pop up after his work, that he comes back out free of charge to fix / stop them.

Please share your thoughts with me. If this is a scam / non functional way to stop water leaks, I would like to know before the guy makes the trip out here.

Thanks,

Ron
 
  #2  
Old 10-14-16, 04:27 AM
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RUN. He can't fill anything without fitst removing the soil away from the walls. He won't be back if you have a leak. He will have made enough money to relocate and leave you hanging.
 
  #3  
Old 10-14-16, 04:40 AM
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Is it made with ground up magic beans and snake oil?
And when it still leaks after he's done it's likely to just make it a whole lot harder for someone to come in and fix it right.
 
  #4  
Old 10-14-16, 04:48 AM
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I am curious how you would have any grass or landscaping around your house if he fills the ground with grout/cement. It sounds like they are talking about creating a grout wall or barrier. It's done in commercial construction.

To be effective a waterproofing membrane or material needs to extend all the way to the footer not just the floor level of the basement and extend to the surface. How they accurately control the dispersion of any material underground is a mystery to me. Maybe there is a way they can do it but I think it's largely luck. They do stuff and hope it works. If it doesn't they come give it another shot. Lather, rinse, repeat.
 
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Old 11-16-16, 08:36 PM
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I decided not to go with the concrete slurry pumped into the ground as previously mentioned. Now I'm looking at this stuff.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...=AP9TLT2LX6QXY

and this applied over it.....

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...A2JGH9K1780DGL

Has anyone ever used these products ?? If so what were your results ??

I decided I can pick away at prepping the walls, then cover the leaking spots with thses products, if there any good.

I've already been working on the outside of the foundation getting the grade set properly to shed water, rather than hold it next to the foundation as it was previously doing. I'm hoping that with this "waterplug" and "sealer" that I should be good for a few years.

Please share your thoughts / experiences with these type's of products.

Thanks,

Ron
 

Last edited by skooterbum11; 11-16-16 at 08:39 PM. Reason: spelling
  #6  
Old 11-17-16, 04:08 AM
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Hydraulic cement is for holes in concrete, not cracks. Thoroseal is an internally applied sealant which, like other brands of the same stuff, only coat the inside of the wall. You are not stopping the water. The only way to properly seal the basement is from the outside with proper membrane and sealant against the exterior of the wall. With the internal sealants, water will still find its way into the block cavities or cracks and will create hydraulic pressure that will most likely penetrate any sealant on the interior wall.
 
  #7  
Old 11-17-16, 04:45 AM
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From the link below: "Cellars were easy to construct – rubble, stone, bricks and sometimes block. If they got wet or were damp so what? Basements are different. They are not easy to construct if we intend to live in them. They need to be dry, comfortable and keep contaminants out. Basements are viewed by many as cheap space that can easily be incorporated into a home. Keeping basements dry, comfortable and contaminant free is proving to be anything but simple."

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=...39138859,d.eWE

Building a dry basement suitable for an investment to make it quality living space is best done during construction. To upgrade an existing basement that has leaks and moisture vapor issues to this level is nearly impossible and at the minimum expensive.

Bud
 
  #8  
Old 11-17-16, 11:18 AM
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Bud, I grew up in a house that had been built in 1905 in Seattle, the city of perpetual rain. The house was added to and extensively remodeled in the late 1920s or early 1930s and at that time the kitchen was added. I don't know if the basement under the original house was also remodeled when the kitchen was added or if it was built the way it was originally.

Anyway, the area under the kitchen was nothing more than a crawlspace with a half door/hatch from the ceiling down to the original foundation which was about 48 to 54 inches above the finished (concrete) floor. All of the finished basement had plaster walls on drywall lath, gypsum board with a pattern of about 3/4 inch holes for the plaster to key into. The ceiling was covered with 1x12 clear fir with battens over the seams. The north wall was also the foundation, mostly below grade and had the main sewer leave at about four feet above the floor. This wall did not have the drywall lath but it had been parged with the same plaster as the other walls. The ONLY place where any wall leaked was right where the sewer line went through the wall and this was traced to a broken fitting in the sewer line that collected the rainwater from the gutters. Once we dug this up and repaired the broken fitting the leak stopped.

Although the house is now long gone I am absolutely certain there was NO waterproofing done on the exterior of this foundation. There was absolutely no sign of any water ever having penetrated the foundation walls anywhere. The south side of the house would often have standing water during or after a rainstorm and the outside stairwell would have a tendency to direct water down the stairs and eventually under the door once the drywell at the bottom of the stairs was silted in. Otherwise that basement was absolutely dry, at least from any visible water.

Maybe it was the concrete mixture that was used. I have no doubt that a "rich" mixture (more Portland cement than used today) was used and that may be why it was tight. It was, however, not unique as I have seen many basements in the Seattle area of the same era and even much later that were just as dry.
 
  #9  
Old 11-17-16, 11:21 AM
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Furd - are basements common out there? My only experience is the two houses I lived in which were slab on grade and a relative's place which did have a (dry and finished) basement.
 
  #10  
Old 11-17-16, 12:06 PM
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Kind of a tough question to answer. Older homes almost always will have some kind of basement but not always finished. Newer homes will rarely have basements but only a ventilated crawlspace. I would say that homes built before WWII are most likely to have a full basement, between WWII and the mid-to-late '50s about 50% chance of a full basement and since about 1960 a fairly low chance of a full basement. Of those homes that DO have basements very few have sump pumps or water problems.
 
  #11  
Old 11-17-16, 01:03 PM
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Cool, thanks
 
 

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