Why would water start pouring into your basement after a water line upgrade? Did the plumber screw up or could it be something else entirely? The Crack Daddy explains what it could be and how A1 Foundation Crack Repair fixes problems like these.
Narrator: The topic of today's podcast: Why is there water coming into my basement after a water line upgrade? So, Adam, why would water start pouring into your basement after a water line upgrade? Did the plumber screw up?
Adam: We get this phone call actually more often than one would think either with water lines and with sewer lines or septic upgrades where something has been there since the 1960s or ‘70s, and it's time to redo the line out to the street or out the septic line and the plumber comes in and they tie in from the old to the new. And then on the first rain that comes through, we get water coming in everywhere. We actually just had a house in Acton, Massachusetts where we had this exact issue. It was a water line that was going out to the street, an old copper water line that they replaced with a plastic hex line going out. It had never leaked forever, and then all of a sudden, it started leaking after the first rain.
So did the plumber really screw up? Probably not. The water lines are probably very tight. Most often they come back and they check to make sure there's no actual water coming through or around any of the fittings. What happens here, especially with concrete foundations, you have a line that goes through the wall, through the poured concrete foundation wall. And the hole for the water line is going to be obviously larger in diameter than the line itself. So they actually have to open that up and then snake a new line through. And oftentimes, it does involve some excavation on the outside as well. So the combination of disturbing the soil and then opening up that void space kind of just disrupts the whole environment there, and now water can find its way through a softer soil into an area where it may not be entirely water sealed around the foundation.
More often than not, whether it's the city line coming in or it's a plumber doing it, they're going to pack hydraulic cement around this pipe so that way it creates a seal there. The problem is that you have 3 materials. You have concrete, you have hydraulic cement, and then you have the pipe material itself, and they all expand and contract at different rates. Yeah. The fact that they then maybe excavated on the outside and that soil is now loosened and not as compact, and so water can penetrate through there. So we do get this post service upgrade call fairly often where we have to get in, re-expose that void space. We then use our waterproofing material that'll go from the inside all the way to the outside, totally sealing off the void space, and then we recap it on the inside so it looks like nothing's ever done.
Most of these services, the vast majority, never need to be re dug from the outside. So it's a huge disruption to have to do it from the outside in. More often than not, I would say 99 times out of a 100, we can do it from the inside out. So just because it's leaking doesn't mean it's going to be a huge disruption to your life. It's usually less than 2 hours of work to get in there. It's a warrantable service, and that way you don't have to worry about the new upgrade causing issues in the basement that may be finished or just be a nuisance downstairs. So if you do have this issue, whether it's a septic line, a sewer line, or sometimes even electrical penetrations, please let us know. We can come in and we can help you out. And that way, you never have to worry about water coming in again through these areas.
Narrator: Thanks, Adam, for explaining why water would come into the basement after a water line upgrade and what you can do about it.
Narrator: If you have a basement water problem, leaking pipes and think you need a crack repair professional near Providence, RI, or, if you’d like more information on foundation crack repair and basement waterproofing topics, please visit A1FoundationCrackRepair.com or call Adam at (866) 929-3171. Or you can email Adam at info@a1foundationcrackrepair.com. Thanks for listening and keep that basement dry.