Any of you who have known me since I moved into my current palatial estate (ha ha ha it's so small in parts I have to go out of the bedroom to change my mind...but it was all I could afford after the divorce) will know the story of the leaking basement steps. To make a long story short here, I moved into this house one September and all was well. The following summer, the steps off the dining room going into the basement began leaking like a sieve! Because the leaks were coming from cracks in the steps, there was nothing you could do to catch the water and since the basement is finished it could not be allowed to cascade unstaunched, to ruin the carpets and walls below!
So, you had to throw many towels onto the stairs and then as they got saturated, wring them into a five gallon bucket, and throw them back down. When the buck filled you had to run and pour that down the sump. With my bad back the last thing I need is repeated bending or prolonged standing on stairs with my feet at different heights.
I had called a number of places, most balked when they heard the type of leak I had though one place did want to (for about 10K!!) dig out the basement steps and repour them.
I finally found a place that injects Bentonite Clay into the soil around the basement at 3-4ft intervals. The Bentonite coats the walls from footing to grade. As the Bentonite absorbs groundwater, it swells up to 15 times it's volume and thickens, creating an impenetrable gelatin membrane, which protects against further water penetration.
So, for about 1.2K they inject this in a L shape outside the area where they suspected the leak was coming from. On one part of the L this involved first drilling through the concrete slab outside. No go; while less was coming in it still leaked. They came back twice and repeated the process. better, but not enough. One day as I was watching the rain on the opposite side of the L I noticed that it was rolling of the roof like a waterfall on the side of the house. I have no gutters but a roof that overhangs the side of the house by a good foot and a half. Anyway, I called them back and as they were retreating the L area, I walked them around to the opposite side of the house and said what about here? Well, they decided to treat that additional area (and did not charge anything which was cool) and when they got to the back part of the side directly opposite the leak, they encountered a surprise. Normally each hole they inject takes about 10 gallons max of the clay solution. That hole took 55 gallons! I theorize that the sheer amount of water coming off that side of the roof (which is adjacent to the garage roof so you get the combined runoff from that too) had undermines the area under that part of the foundation.
I also had a gutter company come out and put gutters on that back side of the house. That was fairly late last summer and while no water had leaked in, I was still not convinced all is well.
Today it has been raining most of the day, and so far. not a drop! Until though we have some of those torrential rainfalls where you see the water running across the lawn because it can't drain quick enough, I will not be totally convinced. However, the Mr. Spock part of me tells me my logic is sound. We shall see! It was nightmarish night when it rained in the middle of the night having to be up fighting the water at 2AM in the morning.
So, you had to throw many towels onto the stairs and then as they got saturated, wring them into a five gallon bucket, and throw them back down. When the buck filled you had to run and pour that down the sump. With my bad back the last thing I need is repeated bending or prolonged standing on stairs with my feet at different heights.
I had called a number of places, most balked when they heard the type of leak I had though one place did want to (for about 10K!!) dig out the basement steps and repour them.
I finally found a place that injects Bentonite Clay into the soil around the basement at 3-4ft intervals. The Bentonite coats the walls from footing to grade. As the Bentonite absorbs groundwater, it swells up to 15 times it's volume and thickens, creating an impenetrable gelatin membrane, which protects against further water penetration.
So, for about 1.2K they inject this in a L shape outside the area where they suspected the leak was coming from. On one part of the L this involved first drilling through the concrete slab outside. No go; while less was coming in it still leaked. They came back twice and repeated the process. better, but not enough. One day as I was watching the rain on the opposite side of the L I noticed that it was rolling of the roof like a waterfall on the side of the house. I have no gutters but a roof that overhangs the side of the house by a good foot and a half. Anyway, I called them back and as they were retreating the L area, I walked them around to the opposite side of the house and said what about here? Well, they decided to treat that additional area (and did not charge anything which was cool) and when they got to the back part of the side directly opposite the leak, they encountered a surprise. Normally each hole they inject takes about 10 gallons max of the clay solution. That hole took 55 gallons! I theorize that the sheer amount of water coming off that side of the roof (which is adjacent to the garage roof so you get the combined runoff from that too) had undermines the area under that part of the foundation.
I also had a gutter company come out and put gutters on that back side of the house. That was fairly late last summer and while no water had leaked in, I was still not convinced all is well.
Today it has been raining most of the day, and so far. not a drop! Until though we have some of those torrential rainfalls where you see the water running across the lawn because it can't drain quick enough, I will not be totally convinced. However, the Mr. Spock part of me tells me my logic is sound. We shall see! It was nightmarish night when it rained in the middle of the night having to be up fighting the water at 2AM in the morning.
Were it not for all of the pain of the experience, it did kind of look nice the way it gently cascaded down the flight of steps!
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