In this episode, Adam explains what to do if your leaky basement windows are making you feel like you’re living in a land-based submarine.
Narrator: It's time once again for the Crackman podcast, hosted by A1 Foundation Crack Repair. I'm Darren Kincaid and I'm here with the crack daddy himself, Adam Tracy. Adam has 20 years of experience in the construction industry and as a civil engineer is A1 Foundation's resident engineer on staff, solving a plethora of unique foundation problems every day. This podcast provides expert basement waterproofing, concrete repair, and preventative maintenance tips for homeowners and businesses. A1 Foundation's valuable insight will help avert the disaster of a flooded basement, health problems due to water infiltration, and protect your biggest investment, your home. The topic of today's podcast: Living in a land based submarine, how to deal with leaking basement windows.
Narrator: So Adam, you sent an interesting picture of a basement with a serious water leak. What's the story there?
Adam: Yeah, this is a fun one. In fact, we just are in the process of finishing up a pretty major rain event here in Massachusetts in the New England area where we got several inches of rain, two to three inches of rain over about a 24-hour period.
And when the ground can't take all of that all at once, you'll see puddles forming on the ground on the yards and on grassy areas instead of it actually soaking into the soil. And when we get these calls of water coming in and around the window, it's really hard to know what the point of origin is.
And especially if it's a finished basement, so in this particular case, the gentleman's basement was unfinished. So we're able to really identify some of the areas of issues.
So it's important that when water is coming through a window area, it's to identify is it a window issue or is it a foundation issue.
So let's assume that you have a concrete foundation with a vinyl type window or a steel cased window. So that would cover basically anything from 1950 to construction today.
Now, with this particular area, the windows were actually below the natural grade of the grass. So they had a window well dug out and that window well was actually filling up with water.
So that water would come above the baseline of the vinyl window coming through the actual window and in and around the casing.
Now, there were actually cracks that came off the corner of the window and they also had water coming through them not just at the corner where the window meets the concrete but down the cracks as well.
And those cracks off corners of windows are the most common ones that we do. We do them every day.
It's simply because the weak point in the concrete when you have a step down or right angle and either a shrinkage crack or a settling crack usually develops around that area.
So those are very simple repairs, something we've discussed hundreds of times on these podcasts and we do thousands and thousands of times a year.
But when we have the water actually coming through the window and through the casing, it's a little bit of a different story.
So what can you even do in the cases where water's coming through the window?
Well at that point you have to shift your focus away from is this a foundation repair to is how do I get the water away.
And in these particular cases they had no coverings over the window wells so when you have 3 inches of rain dumping into essentially a barrel catch that goes against the window it fills up and that natural stone drainage that they had at the very base wasn't low enough to allow that 2 to 3 inches of accumulation so the water came up went over the edge and no amount of silicone or polyurethane caulking is going to stop that.
These windows are meant to be weather proof but not submerged and so when you have that water coming through the first job is to get water away whether it's getting a little puddle sucker pump in there to pump it out into the grassy area getting covers or in some cases you need to dig out that area drop down the gravel bed and maybe put in some drainage so that water doesn't accumulate there.
In very rare cases where you don't have this ability sometimes we can inject from the inside to basically seal that space between the window and the concrete.
The challenge there is it gives you a little bit of a false sense of security because if the water does come up and over to the glass area you're out of luck because the material is not going to work its way through the glass.
So if you're getting these issues you have to make sure that the window wells are clear, they're not filled with leaves, they're not accumulating water or snow in them and that the waterline has no chance of getting up to the window casing or up into the glass.
So it's about maintenance to your home it's about mitigation and techniques around the outside and if there's any water coming through the actual concrete that's where a foundation expert like us needs to come in waterproof it and really take care of the areas so that way you're not really caught in an issue of trying to figure out I've done everything I can on the outside and it's still coming through because you know what concrete will still weep water through if you don't deal with those as well.
So take a look, walk around the foundation, make sure that you have good clearance around the windows, make sure those mulch beds aren't really tight to the window areas and you'll be in much better shape than trying to drive your land submarine.
Narrator: Thanks, Adam, for explaining what to do if your leaky basement windows are making you feel like you're living in a land based submarine.
Narrator: If you have a basement water problem and think you need a professional near Massachusetts or if you'd like more information on foundation crack repair and basement waterproofing topics, please visit a1foundationcrackrepair.com, call Adam at (866) 929-3171 or you can email Adam at info@a1foundationcrackrepair.com. Thanks for listening and keep that basement dry.