Basement Waterproofing

[eastTN270]

Every house I’ve ever lived in has had water/moisture in the basement. I’m building my house now and want recommendations on below grade waterproofing. I’m thinking of a membrane type wrap and then cover that with the black tar type waterproofer.


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[Urban_Hunter]

Setting the correct grade and stone base is more important than the membrane imo. Make sure Water around the foundation can get out.

 

[Ladys man]

I’m currently been working on remodeling mine I took everything down all the way to the furring strips, I put dryloc basement sealer on the block. Seems to of worked I haven’t had any moisture in the basement in about 6 months since it was done, also rerouted my gutters that was a big problem of it.

 

[SilverFox]

I had the wrap on my last house and it worked well. Biggest thing is making sure the water runs off before it ever has a chance to soak into the block.

The dirt is going to settle around the foundation for a couple years if it's like mine. I've had to haul dirt in several time to keep the slope to run the water off. If the water doesn't run off it'll soak in from the top above the waterproof.

 

[TNTreeman]

Been there. Extend gutters away from home. Divert water. Dig around block to footers, apply footer drain, clean block and apply tar and thick plastic membrane, apply dry lock to inside of block on other side inside building. Did all that 15 yrs ago and ZERO water since.

 

[deerduck38201]

Rubber type membrane. There are 2 types which work good. One is a stick on type that comes in a roll and the other is a brush or roll on type that comes in a bucket. It would also be wise to use a dimple board over the membrane once applied. That board creates an airspace between the wall and the soil. As others have said, next is a correctly installed foundation drain to carry any water that does accumulate. Also make sure the piping of this drain is below floor grade. Tar products do work but they degrade over time so I avoid petroleum based waterproofing.

 

[prstide]

The most important thing is to run perimeter drains and keep the water from being able to create hydrostatic pressure on the wall. We are in the process of building and have a full walk out basement. We used ICF's and went with the Tamko
TW-60 waterproofing membrane and on top of that we ran Superseal dimple membrane. Do not skimp on ensuring it will be watertight. Use the right materials and do it right the first time so you save yourself a lot more in the long run.

 

[double browtine]

AMES block sealer.

https://www.amesresearch.com/

I am going to seal the inside of my basement this spring, before I begin to finish out a portion of my basement. Go to YouTube and watch some of their videos. This stuff is definitely better than a tar product. Also as mentioned above, put in a French drain system around your foundation and behind any tall retaining walls.

 

[bobbuck]

We built our house 16 years ago. I spent the money and had poured walls (not real popular back then). They put a white membrane on the walls where they would be below grade. I also had my gutters piped underground and away from house at least 50 ft. Never had any water in my basement. Love the look of the pour concrete in my basement also, looks much cleaner than block with less chances for cracking. Not sure how much more it is today to pour vs. block, but I have noticed a lot of the larger builders going poured now in my area. Which tells me the price must be pretty close because the big builders are usually cutting as many corners as possible.

 

[mr.big]

I started with a 2' drop over 54' length of house outside footers below the basement floor and put 6" corrugated pipe in with holes in it and ran that underground across yard in ditch,,put a layer of 4" rock about 18" deep down first then 2' of 2" rock and then back filled with 1" gravel up to where I only have about 1' of topsoil covering the rock out to where the solid ground starts,,

we also black tarred the outside of the block which are 12" under grade and poured the block full of some pretty wet 3,000 psi concrete,,,,

other than it raining hard enough for water to come down the flu and running out the inside of my King stove before we put a top on the flu we havent had any water leak through the block in our basement since we built in 2002,,

 

[RandyinTN]

Good French drains are way more important that any thing else.