Advancements In Basement Waterproofing
If you live in a home that was built before the 1970s and
live in an area where it rains or snows often, there is a very good
chance that you'll have a problem with your basement waterproofing
system. There have been great advancements in basement waterproofing
since then and I would like to share a few of them with you.
A long time ago, the foundation in the basement to the home would be
built, without any knowledge of the problems that they were about to
encounter. Contractors a long time ago thought that by pouring a solid
concrete wall, water wouldn't go through it. That wasn't the case and
eventually as these old basements began to suffer from water damage, new
advanced construction methods needed to be found.
Basement contractors soon learned, that it was best to install a
drainage system around the exterior perimeter at the base of the
foundation walls. Then they would back fill these areas carefully with
large gravel rocks. This worked good for a few years, until the dirt
that seeped through the gravel rock, slowly started to block and fill
the drainage pipes. Eventually the dirt clogged drainage pipes would
stop functioning and would need to be replaced.
Now here's what they're doing today, could this be a problem in the
future, I'm sure that it will be, but basement contractors are doing the
best with what they got and it seem to be going in the right direction.
For quite some time now contractors have been covering the drainage
pipes with a cloth material that allows water to enter the drainage
pipes but prevents the dirt particles from entering and then clogging
the drain pipes. This system seems to work pretty good and is also used
for retaining walls today.
Well, that's where they're at today, and I hope that you now have a
better idea of how your basement foundation walls work to keep water out
of your basement.