This time of year we tend to get a lot of torrential downpours. If you have a leaky basement window, you’re gonna know about it pretty quickly. In this episode, The Crackman explains how to fix a leaky basement window.
Narrator: It’s time once again for the “Crack Man Podcast” hosted by A1 Foundation Crack Repair. I’m Darren Kincaid here with the Crack Man himself, Rich Comeras. Rich has 30 years’ experience in the construction industry and over 25 years as the president and founder of A1 Foundation Crack Repair. This podcasts provides expert basement waterproofing, concrete repair, and preventative maintenance tips for homeowners and businesses. A1 Foundation’s valuable insight will help avert a disastrous flood within the basement, health problems associated with water infiltration, and protect your biggest investment….your home. The topic of today’s podcast: How do I fix a leak around my basement window?
Narrator: So Rich, this time of year, we tend to get a lot of torrential downpours. If you have a leaky basement window, I’m guessing you’re going to know about it pretty quickly, right?
Rich: Yes, you certainly will. And we recently had this conversation with a woman from Worcester Mass., where she had the torrential rain and water is coming in in the basement near her window. First we must find out where is it coming from because there’s a few different areas it can come from. One is around the window frame itself between the concrete and the window, but we got to look at the obvious part first. Is the window closed? And is it closed tight? As it can come through when you open it but as I said it can come through where the concrete meets the frame.
So if it is coming through that area, and the way you can determine where it’s coming from is if you take a garden hose and spray it, like rain would come, or put it on the ground and let the garden hose run, and you’ll see where it’s coming from. If it is coming in around the frame, you can get a good build clocking-in clock around it, but first you have to clean it out really well at that scene. We also see water coming in, don’t forget these windows themselves are not portholes in a submarine, they’re not made to stop standing water. There sometimes is a window well which is a dugout area in front of the window, and those window wells fill up with water. So if that’s the case and it’s resting against your window and water comes in, you may want to dig that window well deeper so that the water has a chance to percolate down.
We also see, and it doesn’t matter if you’re in Worcester or Waltham, we see this everywhere, the most common thing is that there’s a crack off of the corner of the window. And that’s, that would be considered a stellman crack and what you’ll see is water not spurting through the crack, but you’ll see water at the bottom of the crack and on the floor, where the water is coming through. And that we can repair either by an injection, what’s called an injection process where we drill at angles to the crack, every six to eight inches, put our ports in the small holes. We drill, tighten up those ports and then inject the closed cell polymer resin material. Or, we’ll put another material in the crack and then a weave carbon fiber blanket on top of that. And then they get a warranty on it. Now we get a lot of calls, in fact, just this morning we had somebody call that they did have a window crack and they tried to fix it with one of those Home Depot remedies that does advertise on TV that you spray it on like magic and it stops water, and they’re calling us because it’s still leaking. So, if you have a water issue around the window, feel free to use this as a resource to help you out.
Narrator: Thanks Rich for explaining how to fix a leaky basement window.
Narrator: If you have a basement water problem and think you need a professional, or, if you’d like more information on foundation crack repair and basement waterproofing topics, please visit A1FoundationCrackRepair.com or call Rich at (866) 929-3171. Or you can email Rich at info@a1foundationcrackrepair.com. Thanks for listening and keep that basement dry.