Basement Water Problem

 

 

 

Last week I visited a house and a very unhappy home owner. This sparked me to drop a line.

Typically, the leaking of water in basements / wine cellars can be caused due to two reasons. First and most common is the condensation due to lack of proper ventilation which causes water accumulating on the basement walls. Much like water droplets that form on a cold drink on a hot day.

The other is water ingress from outside. Rainwater, melting snow, groundwater or in this case under-groundwater can saturate the soil around the basement foundation or wall and result in dampness, mildew or leak in. This water can leak through cracks, or it can penetrate through concrete or masonry walls in the form of water vapor. In extreme cases like the basement I visited last week, it can actually stream in through the wall!

 

One way to figure out what's causing the problem is tape an aluminum foil to the basement wall and inspect it a few days later. Moisture on the outside surface of the foil indicates high indoor humidity. Moisture behind the foil means moisture is leaking through the walls.

 

In the case at hand, the house is a double storey plus a basement / wine cellar. The cellar is beautifully designed to look into the pool.

The engineer had designed a cavity wall to drain the underground water to a sump and then the water was going to be pumped by an automatic submerged pump into the drainage system.

It all sounds great except that the designers forgot to assess the flow of the underground water correctly and then (looking at the drawings) there seems that no provisions of waterproofing inside or behind the cavity walls were made. The result is an unhappy client with a beautiful cellar that he cannot utilise.

Unfortunately, I cannot share the pictures to respect the confidentiality of the client. Nevertheless, I think you get the picture.

 

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Bibliography

Byron, P. (2021). P&B Consulting Engineers pty ltd.  http://www.pnbconsulting.co.za/

Family Handyman. (2019). Retrieved 2021, from https://www.familyhandyman.com/list/affordable-ways-to-dry-up-your-wet-basement-for-good/