Keeping a Basement Dry

What is an assessment?  Basement Assessments is how we keep basements dry.

It’s a preventive maintenance measure and procedure for keeping your basement from leaking for many years to come.  If you have a basement that has stayed dry since the day it was built – let us help you keep it that way. Many people in Texas and Oklahoma don’t believe it’s possible to have a basement, which puts you in the group of people who know better. Just like people who own the rarest of cars, finding someone to diagnose any problems you will have and easily fixing them may be nearly impossible.  We are the only statewide basement repair company in the state so we know exactly how hard it is to find someone to diagnose and repair a leaky basement. The majority of leaky basements we see could have easily been assessed and problems corrected before they ever started leaking. A simple assessment would have saved basement owners hundreds of dollars drying out wet areas. It would have saved them thousands of dollars replacing water damaged areas as well. The important thing to note is once a basement starts to leak, repair costs skyrocket, since – your first loss is everything you placed in the basement of value that was left on the floor. Next are the floor coverings like carpet and padding which tends to stay wet longer in the basement.  Without professional help quickly, many home owners end up replacing most carpet areas in the basement.  We all know that even cheap carpet can cost $300 and up once they include padding.  Expensive coverings like different types of wood flooring can cost into the thousands if proper backings were not used beneath them.  Last, you lose whatever you stored in the basement for safekeeping for so many years that you may have forgotten. A basement is not like an attic where you store things and can actually forget them.In the basement it has to be maintained to remain dry over the life of your home.

Ask people who have had severe foundation repair problems in the past, and the vast majority of them will tell you the same story. Once they fixed their problems it was only the beginning in most cases.  Next they had to fix all the troubled areas to be sure they fixed the actual leak.  Areas like cracks in their wall that had to be filled in then, areas patched and re-textured. Last, all the treated areas will need to be repainted or plastered in most cases.  Anyone who has ever had a wall textured or has a faux finish knows you can’t simply touchup any damaged area, even the tiny-sized damaged area of a dime. The entire wall will have to be either retextured or repainted in its entirety to hide the damage. Let’s just say you don’t ever want to have one of these beautiful walls and have to touchitup because one thing you can’t call it is SIMPLE. That is how you should see your basement (in keeping it dry).You can spend hundreds of dollars to maintain its (dryness), or you can possibly pay tens of thousands to repair it.  Many of the basements in Texas that were built are over twenty years old and in many cases many years older.  Don’t sell yourself the fallacy of thinking since it has never leaked you’re safe and it will never leak, because that is a fantasy.  Older basements will leak regardless of where it is over time, especially now.

Due to rare events that are happening now all over Texas – the ground is shaking in places that have never recorded it before.  We all know what happens to concrete when you introduce shaking anywhere near it. Yes, it cracks, and that is devastating to any part of a basement regardless of what materials were used to build it. Concrete block, foam blocks, and in some cases brick all leak at their joints which creates many leaks all at one time. Strong poured concrete walls are no exception to the rule.Under these conditions spider cracks begin to form not only outside your basement walls where you can see them, but inside the concrete where you can’t see them.

The other events happening all over Texas are the lack of water (drought) in some areas and too much water in other areas.  Dry basements in drought areas lose all of their moisture, believe it or not,and tend to shrink and become brittle over time.  What that means is it will no longer be waterproof and during a heavy rain it will begin allowing water to penetrate it. Once the water begins to flow through it, you will find more than one area that will be leaking.  Both events are devastating to the long life of your basement surviving over time without (making leaks). Areas that have been wet in the past will flood in the coming years because of how they were built.  Imagine, over 80% of the basements we repair in Texas don’t even have any type of sump pump;60% of the basements don’t have any type of waterproofing on them when we finally dig them out.  Over 40% of them have clogged French drain lines if they were actually installed at all.  Protect yourself and order an assessment today and keep your basement trouble-free.