Gutters to help leaky basement?

[nlittle]

Hi there,
After all the rain this week I was reminded of my leak in the basement. About 1/2 the wall is underground and there is a crack that only leaks once the ground water level has risen and is saturated, then it is like a little drippy waterfall. My foundation drain is clear but I think it can't keep up. If I get gutters installed do you think that will keep enough of the water away from the house to avoid the leaking? I have tried the patch and water proof paint in the crack. It helps but it seems there are always some pin holes when we have really heavy or constant rain. (I understand the physics of negative/ positive pressure and know these products are inherently flawed.)
So, gutters or a basement crack repair guy?

 

[sdrobertson]

Gutters would help allot Say a house is 40 x 80 and you get 1" of rain...this is 2000 gallons of water draining down the dirt side of your basement. Gutter it away from the house and then you just have the ground moisture.

 

[nlittle]

Thanks!
Left out one small detail, the leak is on the gable end of the roof. Not sure it is the right terminology but is not the side getting dumped on directly from the roof. But if the other sides are then that just makes it harder for this ground water to go anywhere, right?

 

[HopWallop]

I inherited a wet basement when i bought this house. I extended the gutters underground with water pipe and diverted it around and away from the house. I also added another sump pump and now i am bone dry. It is also good to make sure that the ground directly around the house is pitched so water runs away from the foundation. A french drain may also be an option.

 

[dave11]

Grading around the house is key. Make sure you have a downward slope of at least an inch per foot as you travel away from the foundation wall, though more is better.

Because it is the gable end the roof, there is no overhang, and water can hit the outer wall of the house and run right down to the foundation.

If you raise the grade, make sure you use clay or fill, and not topsoil.

Keep all vegetation, including grass, six inches from the foundation walls.

If that still doesn't work, I'd try to make room for a swale, instead of a french drain. Less work, plus don't need to worry about it blocking up over time, which many french drains will.

A neoprene skirt around the top of the foundation walls can make a huge difference on gable walls.

 

[DAKSY]

Get some hydraulic cement & fill the crack.

 

[LLigetfa]

All of the above. Gutters with pipes to carry it far enough from the house is a good start. Hopefully your yard is graded so that the water does not flow back to the foundation. I buried 4 inch PVC to carry the rainwater away and my yard is well sloped.

The best way tho seal the wall is on the exterior but obviously that requires excavation.

 

[dave11]

But also don't forget to consider why the crack ever formed. Are the two sides separated, or is it really just a crack? Can you tell if the either side of it has moved? Is the crack wider at one end?

In other words, just sealing out the water might not be the final solution.

 

[peakbagger]

IMHO, you have to deal with water leaks from the outside. Using any magic product to seal the wall and cracks on the inside just sets up a situation where the water will find some other way into the foundation once the water pressure builds up. You either have to drain it on the outside around the perimeter or drill holes at the base of the wall and drain them into an interior gutter (AKA B Dry system). Obviously anything you can do to keep the water away from the area outside will help, so grading and gutters are important. The new waterproofing systems with the waterproof membrane and the drainage fabric placed on the outside of the wall with a proper drain at the base is the way to go on new installs.

A major horror story is build up on water outside a foundation when the basement is below freezing. The water freezes and swells, blowing the wall in.

I used to use an industrial grouting product at work to chase leaks on masonary tank walls and hydro dams, essentially we drilled the base of the crack, installed an injection port and pumped in this water reactive liquid, whenever the grout encountered liquid water it swelled into a foam and set up in the crack. Inevitably as one crack was sealed other cracks that didnt look active would start leaking farther and farther up the wall until we were level with the liquid in the tank. That showed me that as long as there is pressure on the outside and there isnt a water proof membrane, a typical concrete wall will leak eventually. I still wish I could get the stuff, but it was EPA regulated and I have only seen licensed contractors use it. They use a lot of it in areas with high water tables to seal up leaks in sewer lines.

 

[billb3]

My old house would leak in between the foundation and floor.
extensions on the downspouts solved the dampness and water on the floor in prolonged wet weather.
Basement seemed to stay quite a bit warmer with drier soil around the foundation, too.

The tiny house I'm in now has a rock heap foundation and will leak without extensions.
I have to take them off in the Summer to cut the lawn, but they go back on in the Winter.
I had some plastic fold-up ones with clips, but the clips all broke within a year.

 

[woodburn]

Grading around the house is key. Make sure you have a downward slope of at least an inch per foot as you travel away from the foundation wall, though more is better.

Because it is the gable end the roof, there is no overhang, and water can hit the outer wall of the house and run right down to the foundation.

If you raise the grade, make sure you use clay or fill, and not topsoil.

Keep all vegetation, including grass, six inches from the foundation walls.

If that still doesn't work, I'd try to make room for a swale, instead of a french drain. Less work, plus don't need to worry about it blocking up over time, which many french drains will.

A neoprene skirt around the top of the foundation walls can make a huge difference on gable walls.

Just curious. Why keep grass 6 inches from foundation walls? I always thought this to be beneficial because if the ground is pitched correctly, the grass and root system help with runoff. It also keeps that soil in place during heavy rains.

 

[dave11]

Grading around the house is key. Make sure you have a downward slope of at least an inch per foot as you travel away from the foundation wall, though more is better.

Because it is the gable end the roof, there is no overhang, and water can hit the outer wall of the house and run right down to the foundation.

If you raise the grade, make sure you use clay or fill, and not topsoil.

Keep all vegetation, including grass, six inches from the foundation walls.

If that still doesn't work, I'd try to make room for a swale, instead of a french drain. Less work, plus don't need to worry about it blocking up over time, which many french drains will.

A neoprene skirt around the top of the foundation walls can make a huge difference on gable walls.

Just curious. Why keep grass 6 inches from foundation walls? I always thought this to be beneficial because if the ground is pitched correctly, the grass and root system help with runoff. It also keeps that soil in place during heavy rains.

Any vegetation near the foundation walls will definitely hold moisture there, both by blocking sunlight (and the evaporation it would cause) and by making the soil there more porous, so water ends up draining downward, which is not what you want. Notice for example how a bare patch in a lawn will dry/crack long before normal soil with grass will do so.

Ideally, the surface area near a house's foundation would be a solid surface, so that all rain that fell onto it would run off. Unfortunately, builders refuse to change their ways, and so the soil there is left bare, to either remain bare, or be gradually covered by mulch, top soil, ground covers, or grass.

In the absence of a solid surface, bare soil is next best, though it should be clay or fill, NOT topsoil, and packed down into as solid of a surface as you can manage. It should of course also be graded, as described.

The mistake people make is to regrade using topsoil, or worse, mulch, and think they are getting the job done.

On my own house, I surrounded most of the foundation walls with a border of colored concrete pavers, which ensures a six inch buffer of no vegetation, and a mostly solid surface. I can also tell just by looking that the grade angle is being maintained.

If you need grass to prevent soil erosion around a foundation, you are using the wrong type of soil. Clay or fill, packed down at the top of foundation walls, will not erode, even if bare. The only exception I can think of is if directly below a roof edge without a gutter. But the solution there of course is to place a gutter.

 

[LLigetfa]

I've seen a lot of roof gutters mounted too low on the fascia and the rain would overshoot the gutter. Often too, they are undersized and cannot handle the capacity in heavy rain. Same with the downspouts.

 

[SolarAndWood]

If the problem is extreme in that one area for some reason and you are sure it is water running down the wall, you might consider crusher run pitched away from the house for a few feet and then cover it with decorative stove. Under the eaves, I still grade away but also use a shallow drain with 4" wrapped perforated pipe surrounded by #2 stone. This moves an enormous amount of water away from the building quickly but obviously needs a little grade to be effective for any kind of distance.

This strategy allowed the removal of the gutters and 2 sump pumps that still didn't keep the basement dry.

 

[Valhalla]

Proper gutters and leaders keep water away from
the house. Also make the grade around the foundation
naturally move water away from it.

Simple solutions go a long way.

 

[John the Painter]

A weeping tile system would be your best bet but it can get expensive.I agree with most posts here.Gutters and grading wouldn't hurt.

 

[Chad S.]

I had a similar problem and simply had to re-grade the dirt around my house to direct water away from it.

 

[PatMcNr]

Gutters, grading, and downspouts all need looking at. When it comes to water in the basement, prevention goes a long way.

Make sure your gutters are clean and pitched properly. If you don't have rain gutters, get some or all your roof water will end up directly alongside your foundation.

Make sure they are extended at least 10 feet away. Don't drain them into drywells because they will fill up during heavy rains and overflow. This site http://www.b-dry.com/wet-basement-solutions.html has some info on preventing water in the basement. Its all stuff you can do yourself.

Go outside your home when it is raining heavily to see how well the ground surface water runs around your home. If water is directed at your home or ponding around your home, you are probably going to need a professional landscaper to recontour your yard to direct the water away.

Even with the best waterproofing, you still want to limit water from getting next to your home. In winter, water near your foundation can cause frost damage.

As far as your crack goes, find a waterproofing contractor that installs urethane crack injection. They can drill holes through the crach, install pressure fittings and pump urethane completelty through the crack to seal the outside of the foundation. Urethane will react with moisture in the soil and expand up to 20X its original volume, sealing any voids it can find.