Water issue in garage: who do I call?
October 4, 2010 11:26 AM   Subscribe

Who do I call to investigate the source of and a solution for a water problem in my garage? Is this a big problem or a small one?

I bought a wonderful house two years ago. It sits on in the middle of a hill. The garage is under the house and is unfinished. Pretty regularly, water leaks through a small crack in the foundation into the garage. It's just enough water to wet the concrete floor of the garage, and depending on how much water it is, the "puddle", which is not deep but rather just a wet surface area, can be 2' x 3' or 6' x 7' at its biggest.

The woman I bought the house from remembers "digging up some stuff around the house that looked like kitty litter" when she was re-doing the garden and she thinks that was a curtain drain, but she doesn't know if the water problem started before or after she did that because she removed the kitty litter stuff pretty much as soon as she bought the house.

I've asked several contractors who I've had come do other projects about the water issue. They said the foundation looks good, the crack isn't significant, and that the water isn't really hurting anything but that I should get it taken care of. I've gotten an estimate on ripping up the garden at the side of my house to put a drain down to the foundation line ($6k! ouch!) but the contractor said they aren't even sure that would fix the water issue.

That's part of the problem - no one knows why this water comes in. It's not all that much water, and if there's a huge rain storm, a puddle doesn't immediately form - it can take several days to happen. OR, it will have not rained for days, and then there will be a small puddle. My water meter reads normal, so I don't think there's a leak there.

I'm wondering if there's someone I can hire (and what that someone is called) who could actually figure out why this water is coming in - before I spend $6k on something that might or might not solve the problem and would rip out a huge section of my garden.

I also just don't know how much of a problem this is. If I leave the garage door shut, it gets pretty moldy smelling in there, but if I make sure to leave it open to air it out plenty, it's not that terrible.

Thanks in advance!
posted by grayber to Home & Garden (5 answers total)
 
It sounds like you're getting some soil water drainage traveling along the foundation as a preferred path. Since it sounds small and your contractors have given the foundation an ok, I'd suggest trying to seal the crack with one of those urethane foam repair kits. You should also check to see that you don't have anything else putting extra water in that area like a gutter downspout or overflowing rain barrel. Ideally the ground surface should also be sloping away from your foundation to prevent any water from collecting near it. To take care of the moldy smell you might want to run a dehumidifier down there. Good luck.
posted by pappy at 12:02 PM on October 4, 2010


Response by poster: Thanks, pappy! If I seal the crack, do I have to worry about the water pressure creating another crack?
posted by grayber at 12:13 PM on October 4, 2010


CHECK YOUR DOWNSPOUTS. I had a similar issue when I lived in Michigan; got water in the basement whenever it rained hard enough, but not immediately. It turned out that downspout was plugged (as in leaves packed solid in a few feet of the length of the downspout), resulting in rain water cascading over the edge of the gutter instead of going away the way it was supposed to. After replacing the downspouts to make sure the water could go away as intended, no more problems. The fix cost me about $20.

Sealing the crack will help, but keeping the water away (if that is the problem) will work even better.

In my case, my downspouts went to pipes in the ground that carried the water all the way down to the footing at the bottom of the basement wall, which drained... who knows where... but by getting the rain water down to the footing instead of sitting around the surface, the issue was entirely fixed.
posted by Doohickie at 3:06 PM on October 4, 2010


P.S. The beautiful thing about my suggestion is that if you find a plugged downspout, you are pretty well assured that it is a contributor to the problem.
posted by Doohickie at 3:07 PM on October 4, 2010


Probably the first thing you should try is a hydraulic cement product, which you can apply to the interior side of the foundation crack (after chiseling it to make enough room for a bonding). You can also do this against the bottom joint with the garage floor, where there may be seepage, but there are also polyurethane (and other) caulks that can be used for this purpose. Give that a season and see what it does.

If the ground behind the foundation is so wet that water is actually seeping directly through the concrete (which is, in the final analysis, a porous material), causing efflorescence and/or spalling on the interior surface, then you need to consider a moisture-proofing paint like Dry-Lok. I believe, although you may be advised differently, that these products are only intended to work on the outside surface and will ultimately be defeated by a chronic moisture problem, but they may help for a couple of years at least.

It's DIY possible to carefully dig out the foundation at a 45° angle if it isn't too deep and access enough of it to apply Dry-Lok or other sealing products. If you can't get at enough of the foundation this way you need to hire professional contractors.

Ultimately, what you'll need to do outside is try to prevent the moisture from getting to your foundation. Look at how your property drains after a rain. Where does water move to? Where does it collect? If there is a ponding effect uphill of your garage, can you mitigate it with fill, or by digging a small swale? Directly next to your foundation, is roof runoff collecting; do you have enough sloping away from your foundation?

Something like a French drain is often installed in certain environments when a foundation is built, nowadays, but the lifetime of such a drain is really only a few decades, much less than the lifetime of the foundation itself. Digging it out and replacing broken or clogged drain sections is just one of those things you might have to do at some point. But it is something of a last resort.
posted by dhartung at 3:12 PM on October 4, 2010


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