We have covered a wide variety of interesting case studies on this podcast. This episode covers one that was pretty out there. Take a quick listen.
Narrator: Narrator: It’s time once again for the “Crack Man Podcast” hosted by A1 Foundation Crack Repair. We’re here with the Crackdaddy “Adam”. This podcasts provides expert basement water proofing, 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 within the basement, and protect your biggest investment….your home. The topic of today’s podcast: A Crackman Case Study: The Mysterious Garage Floor Foundation Water Leak. We have Crackdaddy here with us today. Happy new year, Adam.
Adam: Happy new year to you as well.
Narrator: So, Adam, we are recording episode number 221 today, and we have covered a wide variety of interesting case studies. I understand you have one today that is pretty out there huh?
Adam: Yeah, this one was kind of a unique situation. We’re at a house and the way this house is set up is you have the main foundation pour, and then you had an attached garage.They’re almost like two boxes of foundations poured next to each other. The garage floor is at the first floor level. So underneath the garage floor where they pour the foundation to support the garage is all just crushed stone and gravel, sand, and clay. Everything else set down to the footing. And on the opposite side of the wall where the garage meets, it goes into the basement. So the basement wall down in the foundation shares a common wall with the foundation wall for the garage, but on the other side of that wall is nothing but basically stones, rocks, and dirt. Narrator: Alright so if I am understanding you correctly, Adam, that shouldn’t really leak, right? I mean there’s no correlation between the two.
Adam: Yeah, in most cases when you have a shared wall like that, you have basically another foundation to prevent any water coming off rooflines. And those cracks, while they should still be repaired to keep the integrity of that wall together, most times they’re not leaking. In this case, it was a leaking crack, which was a kind of a rarer type of crack that leaks on these common walls with another foundation poured around it. And what happened in this house is that I walked around the property, it was pretty clear what was going on. They were on a pretty steep hill, and most of the water that comes towards the garage level is coming downhill, down the driveway, into where the garage area is. It wasn’t leaking into the garage and then into the foundation, what was happening is that the water was easily collecting in this raceway of the road and the driveway, and funneling into the property, which really raised the water table significantly, more so than it would on a normal rainstorm. So, as the water table rose, the gravel bed that’s underneath the concrete floor of the garage became super saturated. Under normal conditions, that’s not a big deal because there’s nothing there for it to leak into. But because the foundation was poured directly adjacent to that, it was coming into the basement of the house. So, we had water coming in from the outside on a crack which you couldn’t see because it was underground, and there was a garage on top of it.
Narrator: Well, so obviously you were able to fix the cracks and the leaks and things like that, but it sounds like there’s a long-term issue that had to be corrected. What do they do to fix the long-term issue of that grade in the water table and everything else?
Adam: Yeah, we were able to repair the crack through our injection process, which we do for most other leaking foundation cracks. Unfortunately, can’t regrade the property, it was too severe. But what we recommended to them is to look at putting in a trench drain at the front of the garage opening, so that way they could collect the rainwater coming from the driveway and they could safely put it into a dry well in the property away from the foundation to keep it a little bit dryer underneath that foundation area. Narrator: Wow, very interesting. Alright, well thanks for sharing this fascinating case study,
Adam. If you have a basement water problem and think you need a professional, or, if you’d like more information on foundation repair and 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.