Remodel

As you saw in the blog post on Engagement we had a bit of a water issue in our 1970’s vintage home basement. Although the basement was finished, it really had not water proofing done and it had not been touched since the 70s. So even though the timing is not great, the remodel is much welcomed.   In the end we will have a much nicer space that will be no where near as supseptable to water intrusion. Our first priority was to get all the wet stuff out of the basement and by then end of the first weekend we had the majority of the basement demolished and removed.  Our plans call for a new center wall to divide the space and we determined that everything on one side could stay for the time being as there were no signs of water damage.

Next, I needed a plan to abate any future water intrusion.   We had two areas where water was penetrating the basement wall.   First, we had so pressure cracks on the wall that were weeping.   Second, we had water that was coming in over the top of the concrete wall.   The main reason for the water was due to some unusual weather in early December.  Basically we had a few days of weather where we had some very  cold weather and then days of rain followed by more cold weather.   This caused the drainage in the backyard to freeze over.    During the spring thaw, as the snow melted the water flowed over the ice and into our back patio.  At this point the water had no place to go but through and over the basement wall.

Through some research on the web I discovered a product referenced by This Old House that seemed like a good fit.  The product is the Liquid Concrete Repair Kit by Polygem and is a two part process.   Step One is cover the crack with an epoxy hard coating that also holds injection points for step 2.   Step 2 is a liquid epoxy that is injected into the crack through the injection points that is supposed to fill the crack and dry to a flexible seal that is stronger then the concrete.

My experience with the product is mixed, but good.   The epoxy seal on the outside of the crack was very easy to install and seems to work and seal very well.   The injected liquid did not work as well for me.   This could be because my cracks were not very large, but it also could have been because of my cheap caulk gun.

We had another day of snow melt and the majority of the water was kept out, although at a couple of the injection points water was still weeping.   My plan is to cover these points with the exterior epoxy.

Our main plan is to create better drainage in the spring.   Our hope is to create a way to keep the water from getting to the house in the first place.   From what I understand from my research, you can never truly keep water out, so the best plan is to keep it away and if that fails create a way for it to get out with out damaging any of the furnishings.

We will talk about the interior plan in the next post.