Category — Home Maintenance

Solving wet-basement problems is one of the most important things you can do to protect the value of your home and health of your family.

Some wet basements are easy to cure simply by clearing gutters and by diverting gutter water away from the foundation. But if the problem comes from other sources—water flowing toward the house on the surface, seeping in from underground, or backing up through municipal storm drains—you must take more aggressive action.

Here are eight strategies to keep water out of your basement.

 1. Add gutter extensions

 If downspouts are dumping water less than 5 feet away from your house, you can guide water farther out by adding plastic or metal gutter extensions.

 But extensions aren’t the neatest or most effective long-term solution, especially if you’re likely to trip over them or run over them with a lawn mower. Permanent, underground drain pipe is invisible and capable of moving large quantities of gutter runoff much farther from your house.

 For about $10 a foot, a landscaper or waterproofing contractor will dig a sloping trench and install pipe to carry the water safely away.

 2. Plug gaps

If you see water dribbling into the basement through cracks or gaps around plumbing pipes, you can plug the openings yourself with hydraulic cement or polyurethane caulk for less than $20.

 Plugs work when the problem is simply a hole that water oozes through, either from surface runoff or from wet soil. But if the water is coming up through the floor, or at the joint where floor and walls meet, the problem is groundwater, and plugs won’t do the trick.

 3. Restore the crown

If the gutters are working and you’ve plugged obvious holes, but water still dribbles into your basement or crawl space from high on foundation walls, then surface water isn’t draining away from the house as it should.
Your house should sit on a “crown” of soil that slopes at least 6 inches over the first 10 feet in all directions.

 Over time, the soil around the foundation settles. You can build it back with a shovel and dirt. One cubic yard of a water-shedding clay-loam mix from a landscape supply house costs around $30 (plus delivery) and is enough for a 2-foot-wide, 3-inch-deep layer along 57 feet of foundation.

 4. Reshape the landscape

Since your home’s siding slightly overlaps its foundation, building up the crown could bring soil–and rot and termites–too close to siding for comfort: 6 inches is the minimum safe distance. In that case, create a berm (a mound of dirt) or a swale (a wide, shallow ditch), landscape features that redirect water long before it reaches your house.

 In small areas, berms are easy; a landscape contractor can build one for a few hundred dollars. On bigger projects, berms make less sense because you’ll have to truck in too much soil. In that case, dig a swale (about $1,000). Once landscaping grows in, berms and swales can be attractive features in your yard.

 5. Repair footing drains

If water is leaking into your basement low on the walls or at the seams where walls meet the floor, your problem is hydrostatic pressure pushing water up from the ground.

 First, check whether you have footing drains, underground pipes installed when the house was built to carry water away from the foundation. (Look for a manhole or drain in the basement floor or a cleanout pipe capped a few inches above the floor.)

 If the drains are clogged, open the cleanout and flush the pipes with a garden hose. If that doesn’t work, a plumber with an augur can do the job for about $600.

 6. Install a curtain drain

If you don’t have working footing drains, install a curtain drain to divert water that’s traveling underground toward your house.

 A type of French drain, a curtain drain is a shallow trench–2 feet deep and 1.5 feet across–filled with gravel and perforated piping that intercepts water uphill of your house and carries it down the slope a safe distance away.

 If the drain passes through an area with trees or shrubs, consider switching to solid pipe to reduce the risk of roots growing into the piping and clogging it. Cost: $10 to $16 per linear foot.

 7. Pump the water

If you can’t keep subsurface water out, you’ll have to channel it from the inside.

 To create an interior drain system, saw a channel around the perimeter of the floor, chip out the concrete, and lay perforated pipe in the hole. The pipe drains to a collection tank at the basement’s low spot, where a sump pump shoots it out the house.

Starting at about $3,000, an interior system is the best and least disruptive option in an unfinished basement with easy access. It’s also a good choice if your yard is filled with mature landscaping that digging an exterior drainage system would destroy.

 8. Waterproof the walls

Installing an interior drainage system gets the water out but doesn’t waterproof the walls. For that, you need an exterior system: a French drain to relieve hydrostatic pressure and exterior waterproofing to protect the foundation.

 It’s a big job that requires excavating around the house, but it may be the best solution if you have a foundation with numerous gaps. It also keeps the mess and water outside, which may be the best choice if you don’t want to tear up a finished basement.

 The downside, besides a price tag that can reach $20,000, is that your yard takes a beating, and you may need to remove decks or walkways.

By: Jeanne Huber ReBlogged from HouseLogic – Realtor.com

Federal and State guidelines for lead paint in homes are extensive and carry stiff penalties if not disclosed in a real estate transaction – hence the many places that it comes up in residential purchase contracts.

Even radon has become the “worry du jour” with all buyers getting their homes tested for a hazard where the EPA standard is a guess at best and many scientists are still arguing over the studies that point to it as a health hazard.

Asbestos, at least at the Federal level and State of Maryland level is almost a footnote in a general disclosure form, yet asbestos is potentially a greater threat to home occupants than lead or radon!  We know for a fact that airborne asbestos particles cause cancer in humans.  In industry they make a very big deal about asbestos abatement and adhering to mandated detection, air quality sampling and removal guidelines.  Nevertheless, the concern is almost non-existent when it comes to our homes.

The average home buyer has no idea where asbestos may or may not be lurking in the home they select.  Asbestos can be in ceiling tiles, textured ceilings, floor tiles, pipe insulation, paper backing on carpet, older furnaces, roof tiles and exterior siding.  Asbestos is only a hazard if it is disturbed.  So if you have textured ceilings (especially in homes built before 1990) and you decide to sand them down because you hate the texture and want to redo them – you are putting yourself at serious risk.

Asbestos test kits are available at hardware stores or can be ordered online – one source is www.prolabinc.com.  If you find that your textured ceiling does have asbestos, you will need to hire an asbestos abatement company to remove the substance and may even need to move out of your home while the work is being done.

DIY instructions for removing your popcorn ceiling – after you have made sure it doesn’t contain asbestos, of course – can be found at eHow.

For more information on asbestos, go to the EPA website at www.epa.gov and search for “asbestos in your home.”

NAR, National Association of Realtors, has a phenomenal website for homeowners loaded with great information on home maintenance, upgrades and more.  This site will help you plan and organize home projects, give you ideas for home improvement as well as timely information on taxes, insurance and finance.

If you register on the site you can save the information you find, create to-do lists and set project reminders.  You can also customize the site based on where you live, how much money you want to spend (or save) or how handy you are with power tools!

There is even a section that helps you help your community with how-to’s on starting a Neighborhood Watch program, building a local playground and participating in city/county planning projects.

Click here to check it out for yourself –  HouseLogic .