[s-cars] More Than You Ever Wanted to Know About Keeping Water Outof the Basement

[chris chambers]

Gentz,

it's a 90+ year old house and we don't have a problem with water.
Atleast we don't when my dog doesn't pull the extension off of the
downspout from the gutters... ;-)

Maybe I'm paranoid but I thought it would be a good idea to seal
the block walls before finishing it off to protect against potential
water intrusion.

So am I just being overly paranoid?
Should I just scrape the loose paint and seal the walls as they are?

Any thoughts?
Thanks
Chris



--- On Tue, 2/10/09, JC <jc at j2c3.com> wrote:

> From: JC <jc at j2c3.com>
> Subject: Re: [s-cars] More Than You Ever Wanted to Know About Keeping Water Outof the Basement
> To: "'Calvin Young'" <calvinyoung at cox.net>, s-car-list at audifans.com
> Date: Tuesday, February 10, 2009, 8:16 AM
> +1 to french drains and needing to move the water, not make
> the house a
> submarine. as Calvin says, you can do it from the inside of
> a completed
> house if you have to, but the only real solution is giving
> the water a nice
> path to follow.
> 
> BTW, I just did a mini-version of this to stop some water
> incursion around
> our basement door this fall and if you get it right (aka
> figure out the
> exact water path) it might be less work than you think - I
> put in about 6
> feet of french drain in the right spot and now it's dry
> as a bone.  another
> friend of mine stopped his massive basement flooding
> problems by putting in
> french drains over 15 feet away from the house - didn't
> touch anywhere near
> the house, but re-routed the groundwater flow before it
> could get to the
> foundation.
> 
> 
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: s-car-list-bounces at audifans.com
> > [mailto:s-car-list-bounces at audifans.com] On Behalf Of
> Calvin Young
> > Sent: Monday, February 09, 2009 23:06 PM
> > To: s-car-list at audifans.com
> > Subject: [s-cars] More Than You Ever Wanted to Know
> About
> > Keeping Water Outof the Basement
> >
> > The way to keep water out of the basement is to get
> the water
> > to to go somewhere else.  This means draining it away
> by
> > gravity, not using paint.  In time, nothing else
> works; water
> > will get to the place it wants to go.  It is the
> irresistible
> > object that will eventually move all immovable
> objects.
> >
> > The procedure before the house was built should have
> been:
> >
> > 1. Parage the walls with portland cement 2. Use a
> french
> > drain tile system (perforated drain tile covered with
> > stone) on the perimeter of the exterior walls 3. Cover
> the
> > stone with a nylon fabric made to prevent the stone
> from
> > getting fouled by the dirt.  Get the outlet of that
> drain to
> > a place where gravity will take the water to your
> neighbors house.
> > 4. Create swale around the house to get the water away
> before
> > it sinks into the ground in the first place 5. use a
> > guttering system that also gets water away from the
> > foundation and into the swale
> >
> > Get enough water trapped around the foundation of a
> house and
> > it will find a weak spot and come in.  Collected water
> weighs
> > over 8 pounds per gallon.  As it accumulates, it
> creates
> > tremendous hydrostatic pressures.  Just imagine
> thousands of
> > gallons trapped in the soiled
> > around your house, just looking for the one weak spot
> in your wall.
> > It becomes like water trapped in a water tank.  The
> deeper
> > the basement, the more pressure.  No paint can stand
> up to that.
> >
> > Ironically, the weakest spot is perimeterusually not
> the wall
> > itself, but the "cove" area,  that place
> where the wall and
> > the foundation
> > meet.  This is the weakest spot and the pressures are
> the greatest.
> > I have had three homes with over two feet of water
> magically
> > appear after week-long drenching rains that suddenly
> became
> > downpours.  To equalize the pressure, it filled all
> that
> > space in the empty basement.  Just like us after three
> or four beers.
> >
> >   If you do not want to go through all that expense,
> next
> > best is to create a french drain system inside the
> perimeter
> > of the house with a sump pump system that will pump
> out the
> > water that does come in; taking care to get that water
> into a
> > swale away from the house for obvious reasons.  Yes,
> you have
> > to cut the concrete all around the perimeter with a
> saw for
> > about four inches or so and put in the tile, stone and
> > fabric, and then re-cement.
> >
> > next best and cheapest is to just dig a hole and put
> in a
> > sump pump with rock in the bottom.  The water, if
> there, will
> > find its way to the low spot and be pumped out.
> >
> > Forget drylock, it looks good in the commercial, but
> is no
> > alternative at all.
> >
> > If you insist on a sealer, Sears and other companies
> used to
> > sell a product called "Crack Stop" that you
> poured on the
> > exterior of the house near the wall after making a
> trench.
> > This sealed the cinder block on the outside.  I think
> Drylock
> > may have put them out of business because it seems
> like it
> > worked better.
> >   The last thing you want to do is sandblast the
> inside of
> > the house, you will NEVER get rid of the dust and you
> have no
> > idea what is in that paint, could be lead and that
> will kill
> > you and your newborn.
> >
> > Cal
> >
> > >
> > > Said basement has concrete block walls with
> atleast two coats of
> > > paint.
> > > I am going to finish off the basement using
> standard 2x4 stud
> > > construction, but feel it would be prudent to
> seal the block walls
> > > with Drylock or some similiar product. In order
> to do this
> > I need to
> > > strip the walls of the current paint.
> > >
> > > Does anyone know of a mediablaster that
> "recovers" it's spent media?
> > > Also does anyone recommend a sealer other than
> Drylock?
> > >
> > >
> > > Thanks
> > > Chris
> > _______________________________________________
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