Q. The other day I was in my basement and noticed a gap between the basement wall and the floor. What would cause that and do I need to worry about it? A. Well, what would cause this is they pour concrete to make the floor. The concrete has quite a bit of water in it. As it dries, the water evaporates causing "concrete shrinkage". This causes the gap which could be as thin as...

So you’re considering refinishing the basement to increase the value of your home before you sell it. Is it worth the hassle and money? It is definitely going to increase the value of your home. The question is, for every dollar you spend how much are you going to get back when you sell? We did some research and talked to appraisers and realtors. We found that 70% of what you spend on refinishing the...

   We actually ran into a situation where someone was trying to dig out a crawl space to turn it into a regular sized basement. A homeowner called me in a panic. They had hired a company to dig out his crawl space and he came home and saw this situation where they had dug into the soil and the soil was unstable. He was afraid his house was going to fall down. He was...

We get this question every once in awhile, or we get a seller who wants to save some money until after they sell the house. What happens is, people can love a house, they go downstairs, see a crack in the foundation wall and run to the next house because they are afraid of the crack and they don’t want any problems even though the crack can be repaired with a full warranty that is...

We had a call from a condominium association member who has water in the parking garage.  I asked if it was just puddles, she said “yes”; I asked if it only happened in the warm weather, she said “yes”.  I told her that they probably have condensation. They did the condensation test that we had spoken about in the last podcast. Lo and behold, it was condensation and they have had hundreds of companies out...

If a homeowner notices a puddle on the basement floor they need to take some action. What is the puddle being caused from? It could be condensation. When warm air hits a cold surface, the cold surface being the concrete floor, wall or cold water pipe, condensation happens. Or it could be from a void in the concrete, like a crack or from water wicking through the porous concrete. How do we diagnose which is...

Real estate agents and homeowners come to us with concerns about the look of their exterior foundation. Their concern is that the exterior foundation, above grade, is showing signs of pitting, cracking and breaking. Concrete is a porous material, and if there are small micro cracks in the foundation water can get in there and it freezes in the winter which makes it  start to pop the surface of the foundation. To stop this, we...

This is a common problem this time of year and it can cause big health problems and problems if you are trying to sell your home. What is the cause of a damp and humid basement? There are four basic reasons. The first is water infiltration. You may wonder that how can this be because it has been hot and dry. It can still come in because of the water table, irrigation systems, or rain....

There are many things a homeowner can do to prevent water in the basement. First, you have to deal with the hydrostatic pressure of water. Hydrostatic pressure is the water wanting to push in on things, so we have to get water away from the house. Take a look at the downspouts and gutters. If they are broken, split, or leak at the seams or undersides you want to address those and you want to...

If you walk downstairs only to find water in the basement, you need to call a pro to solve the problem. But you also need to find out how the water got there. The first thing you should do is look up and then look down. You want to see if there are any pipes leaking or if there is any condensation on the ceiling. The pipes are cold and the temperature is warm, this...