Homeowner Needs To Fix Leak In Basement
Is Your House A Money Pit?
Foundation repair is not always about fixing cracks in your slab. It can be about cutting tree roots that are many times the cause of early cracked slab issues which cause foundation repair. There are also other interesting issues such as the following article from Burlington Free Press concerning a water leak below the foundation of one home owners property:
Our problem is a leak in our add-on basement. The basement was dug under the existing foundation and footings about 43 years ago. The cement walls were framed 12 to 15 inches deep inside of the footings. The outside of the walls were not framed as the earth was the framing. There are drain tiles laid around the inside floor perimeter emptying into an internal sump pit.
The leak is at the dry seam at the top of where the new wall meets the original foundation, just above the footing. This first happened about 15 years ago. The repair was to chisel out the seam and fill it with hydraulic cement. This fix lasted until now. I think the water is coming underneath the hydraulic cement and leaking onto the ledge of the 12” deep wall. We are able to contain the leakage with putting towels on the ledge, however, this is becoming increasingly more difficult. All of the water that is coming in is clear. A crude drawing is attached.
This leads us to the fact that basement leaks or other repairs around a home can lead to becoming a money pit. This is especially true when you're investing in real estate for the purpose of flipping later and making a tidy profit….check out the following snippet from Twincities.com online publication:
When Annemarie Kill and her husband, John Duffy, bought their first house in Chicago’s Galewood neighborhood in 2003, the duo knew it needed some cosmetic work — in fact, they were excited to redo the bathrooms and kitchen to make the home their own.
Little did they realize that the back of the house had been sinking for the last 75 years, and they would spend hundreds of thousands on unexpected construction. Their inspector hadn’t uncovered the rotting wood posts supporting the back of the house; the couple had no idea they’d eventually have to pour in new concrete to fix the issue, or that they’d have to replace the posts and jack up the back of the house a bit each week, causing the new windows and tile floors they’d installed to crack.