Keeping a dry basement is vital to keeping a healthy and structurally sound home. Maintaining your foundation, and keeping basement moisture out of the picture, is very important, and waterproofing the basement walls should be a priority for any homeowner.
Mostly, it’s important to remember one thing: A crack in your basement walls or floor may be due to hydrostatic pressure – the pressure caused by rainwater building up under or against your foundation. In this case, the only solution is to relieve the hydrostatic pressure by eliminating the source of the water. Simply filling a crack caused by hydrostatic pressure is NOT a good method of waterproofing basement walls – in the long run, it won’t solve a thing, and may create even more hydrostatic pressure.
So the first step in waterproofing basement walls should be to determine where any stray water is coming from. If the problem is severe, with water from outside your house creating hydrostatic pressure, you may need to hire a basement waterproofing company to do the job for you. Waterproofing basement walls is impossible to do simply from the inside; it’s most important to keep water away from the outside of the foundation as much as possible.
If there are cracks in the walls or floor that are not a result of hydrostatic pressure – caused, perhaps, by impacts or other stresses – you can fill them with epoxy or a latex cement formula.
If the basement moisture is coming from an excess of humidity, you can solve the problem by installing one or two dehumidifiers.
