Home inspectors see water damage inside basements all the time. By water damage I refer to signs of water damage. Signs of water damage include water stains, new base trim to cover water stains, water stains on masonry walls, new paint on masonry walls to cover the stains, water stains on basement finishes and new paint on basement finishes to cover the water stains.
Experienced home inspectors are not stupid. They have spent years learning all the tricks home owners use to cover up stains. We watch TV too and see all those bright ideas home owners get from TV shows about staging the home to fool us and you can rest assured those tricks will not work well.
Once the home inspector determines the home owner is lying or cheating us and our client we will just look harder and find more problems.
No fixing surface water that lays against foundation walls is a frequent cause for horizontal cracks in the foundation walls. Horizontal cracks in foundation walls are a sign the foundation wall is moving in a way that is not typical, normal or expected. With a level one can easily see the foundation wall has moved and is no longer plumb. Next thing you know the home inspector will call for further evaluation of the condition of the wall by a State of New Jersey Licensed Professional Engineer is necessary to determine the cost and scope of work.
Allowing surface water to accumulate against the foundation wall can cause it to be necessary to remove and replace a foundation wall at a cost of $10,000 to $25,000.
Many times I will get a call about water infiltration or stained foundation walls. Usually when one gets to the rear yard the reason for the pushed in foundation wall and water stains on the wall was very obvious. Surface water from a very large and steeply graded rear yard is rushing towards the home during heavy rains due to improper grading of the rear yard.
Melting snow will also travel to the rear wall of the home from the very large rear yard. Water running on the surface of the soil towards the home from your very large rear yard is accumulating against the foundation especially under the deck and soaking in. In addition water collecting against the foundation wall is usually freezing and exerting pressure against the rear foundation wall.
We then tell clients immediate corrective actions are necessary in order to avoid further water infiltration and ongoing movement of the foundation wall. In order to get water away from the home as inexpensively as possible I suggest immediate regrading of the soil in the rear of the home. The soil should be regraded so there is a minimum of 8" space between the bottom of the siding and the top of the soil. The soil should then be sloped 1/2" per foot for a minimum of five feet away from the home and directed into a swale to collect the surface water and direct it around the home. The bottom of the swale must be graded so as to drain around one or both sides of the home. Excavating the bottom of the swale down 36" or so and installing 30" of gravel with a 4" solid (not flexible) perforated pipe (perforations pointing to the bottom) drainage pipe near the bottom of the trench and with filter fabric with soil and grass on top with the pipe draining to daylight is likely to make the swale more effective. Removal and replacement of most or all of the deck will be necessary as it covers access to some soil.
In short the way to keep your basement dry is from the outside, not the inside.
Keeping your basement dry from the outside is much cheaper than installing a de-watering system and it stops damage from occurring that can be expensive to cure.
Michael Del Greco is President of Accurate Inspections, Inc, a home inspection business.
He has been a home inspector since 1993 and prior to that spent seven years as a construction project manager. Water in basement and how to cure water in basements & crawl spaces.
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