While Newer Homes Tend To Have Concrete Foundations, Older Homes With Stone Or Brick Foundation May Need To Be Waterproofed

It’s been a rainy summer in Wisconsin, and if you’re a homeowner, you may have found yourself with at least one unpleasant surprise in your basement – water. If that’s the case, it might be time to take a look at your home’s foundation, which might need some kind of waterproofing.

“What type of foundation you actually have will determine what you need to do to correct any issues you may have,” said Paul Kosharek of Zander Solutions. While poured concrete foundations tend to be the basis for newer homes, other homes might have foundations made of stone or block.

A very wet basement is a dead giveaway of an issue, but other symptoms might include cracks, sagging floors, or bowed walls. Before deciding to make a major repair or waterproofing an existing foundation, Kosharek said there are often small things a repair company can do from the inside to alleviate problems.

“You’re trying to stop pressure from the outside from coming through,” he said. “On a poured foundation wall, we do a lot of injections on areas like cracks, so we can do that from the inside.”

If you’re building a new house with a concrete foundation, you might find conflicting opinions on whether or not to waterproof the foundation. But, since concrete can be rather porous, Kosharek recommended doing it.

“I think having something on the exterior of that foundation wall to help and preserve, and not get the moisture into that concrete, is definitely a bonus versus not doing anything,” he said.

Even if you live in an area with absorptive soil, Zander Solutions still recommends waterproofing. There are a lot of places in South Central Wisconsin, notably the Sauk City area, that are very sandy, so they’re not seeing a lot of water actually enter the foundation, but in high rain events, still experience a significant amount of moisture contacting foundation walls. By applying a waterproofing system to the exterior wall to keep the water from contacting the concrete is a good approach.

The cost of a waterproofing job can vary, depending on personal needs and soil conditions, but Kosharek said his average waterproofing remediation job usually runs anywhere from $4,000-10,000.

If you’re looking for more information on waterproofing, radon mitigation, home insulation, or EIFS systems, visit Zander Solutions website or reach out to a Zander Pro at 833-928-1429. You’re going to learn about all the different systems, and how to best approach it, and in different climates and different conditions.