Basement Water Controlled??

[Coach1310]

Anyone have any experience with companies that do this sort of thing? What do they do? What is your experience with them? What kind of cost? Was it worth it?

Any info would be much appreciated. We get a little water in our basement and with the kids growing, I would love to turn it into more usuable space. Thanks for your help.

[fish specialist]

Alright. You are in luck. I just had my basement busted up and an interior drainage system installed. When I say interior drainage system, I mean they came in, jackhammered out about an 18 inch wide strip around the entire outside wall to get at the spot where the concrete block meets the footing, drilled weep holes in each cell of the block and mortar joint, then laid some 3/4 inch rock, then put some PVC pipe on top of that, then covered that with rock, then concreted back over the top. The PVC is sloped and goes into the sump pump. To do all this, which was about 140' of it, cost $9300 and was done by Standard Water Control out of the Cities. I got 3 quotes, Standard Water wasn't the cheapest, but they were cheaper than Basement Water controlled. What sold me on Standard Water was that they had good credentials, seemed very professional, and they did the job in one day. If you don't really understand what is going on with your basement and why it is getting water, buy the book "The Original Basement Waterproofing Handbook" by Jack Masters. I got it off of Amazon.com and it really explains the way these things work. As far as if it is worth it, I keep telling myself it is even though we have a huge mess in the basement to clean up. But all the references I called for Standard (which was about 5 people) they couldn't seem to say enough about how much they liked it and how they wish they'd done it sooner. Just keep in mind that it is a hard, dirty job and to do it right, you need to give the guys access to all of the outside walls. Finished walls make it harder for them to get it done, but they can do it with minimal damage. However, we did have some shifting occur with the doorways that were close to the outside wall. This happened because they removed all the concrete under the wall and there was nothing to support the doorway. This caused the walls to drop and now are doors in those ares won't close as well. But, whenever it rains I'm not worried to death about whether or not I'll get water in my basement. I'm sure after everything is said and done and the basment is back to normal I'll be really glad I did it. Also, something you may want to think about (especially if you plan to put your kids down there for a good period of their life) we put in a radon fan at the same time which is tied into all the PVC that runs around the periemeter of the house. Before we did this work, our house tested at about 9 picouriers/liter (check spelling) and the EPA recommends 4 or less. It does run around $2000 to do this though. If you got any other questions just shout.

[Big Northern]

Standard Water Control has been around a long time. I hired them 20 years ago and I remember thinking back then they did a nice job. The process was pretty much the same as fish specialist described.