Cost of Waterproofing a basement?

[cindermomma]

Hi there! My DH and I looked at a house this weekend in our town that we really like. Only problem - our town has a high water table and this house has 3 sump pumps in the basement. Anyone ever have a house with that many pumps and waterproof to get rid of some or all of them? Would you mind sharing what you paid? I would say this basement is no bigger than 1100 square feet. Thought I would ask here. Not sure if the seller would let us bring a company in for an estimate. BTW - we are buying our current home. It is only 1275 square feet with a crawlspace. We would like a basement for tornado times and just for the extra space. Thanks for any help and input!!

 

[Darcy03231]

Our basement has a water issue and the only way we've been able to get rid of it was to do a french drain system under the house. I don't have any idea how you would do it in a townhouse.

Basically it involved a company coming in and going in about a foot off the basement walls, jack hammering out the concrete and digging a trench all around the perimeter of the basement, about 12" wide and about 2' deep. They filled the trench with perforated pipe and crushed stone, all connected to a sump pump (dual system) in one corner. They then re-concreted the top of the trench. Cost to do it was about $10k. We then had to put in a whole house generator because if we lost power when the water was flowing the sump pump doesn't work (that was another $5k).

My advise is to find another place.

 

[cindermomma]

Our basement has a water issue and the only way we've been able to get rid of it was to do a french drain system under the house. I don't have any idea how you would do it in a townhouse.

Basically it involved a company coming in and going in about a foot off the basement walls, jack hammering out the concrete and digging a trench all around the perimeter of the basement, about 12" wide and about 2' deep. They filled the trench with perforated pipe and crushed stone, all connected to a sump pump (dual system) in one corner. They then re-concreted the top of the trench. Cost to do it was about $10k. We then had to put in a whole house generator because if we lost power when the water was flowing the sump pump doesn't work (that was another $5k).

My advise is to find another place.

This house isn't a townhouse. It's just in my small town. Did all your work pay off? Do you still have water problems? Thank you so much for giving your input!

 

[j's m]

When we built our house, we had french drains and one sump pump put in. After 22 years the french drains failed and/or were done incorrectly. After the spring rains we had to have it re-done, I was tired of shop vacing up water all day and night.

Our cost was $ 7500 for a large basement, we also added a second sump pump. Same way that Darcy explained. Of course, after we did the work, NJ is now in a drought.

With three sump pumps, it obviously has a bad problem. Find another house.

 

[holycow]

don't buy it!!!!

We have neighbors who must be living right near a spring because their house has been through 3 pumps already and have only lived there about 2 years.

 

[si-am]

I wouldn't buy it. We have a basement, no sump pumps or french drains, and we lived here two years before several days of record rain flooded it. (Seeping up through the cement, not coming in from the perimeter).

In the past year, we've only had one other issue, but it is such a HUGE hassle trying to dry everything out and clean up. Not to mention our baseboards look terrible and I'm worried about mold.

We don't have enough equity in the place (thanks to dropping property values) to get a loan to fix the problem. I don't really want to wipe out my emergency savings on it.

If I had it to do over again, I'd get a house without a basement!

 

[cindermomma]

Thanks for all the input! The town we live in has such a high water table - everyone has sump pumps! If I get a bigger house, which I would like, that is pretty much my only option. I live in a small town, so I have few options. Just trying to see what it would cost for a company to fix it. Thanks friends!!!

 

[silmarg]

I live in a 100 year old house that we bought 12 years ago. It had one sump pump that came on during most rains. Most decent rains we would get some water in one corner of the basement - not a ton, but certainly a nuisance amount (lets say a gallon in one corner on the floor). Big rains would produce more water and in more areas then just the one corner. This prevented us from really using that area as livable space.

There was one storm which the water seemed to be pouring in from all areas. While the water never rose above a few inches, we were bailing water from noon to midnight non stop. If we did not bail the water, I am sure it would've been a few feet of water in the basement that day.

After that episode, we did install a french drain (as described above) with two sump pumps. Thh job cost around $6k which I thought was cheap (we live in a fancy zip code where its common for contractors to over charge). Since then (and I think its been about 4 years) there has not been a single drop of water on the floor in my basement.

I have since installed tile floors and it looks great. No regrets here.

 

[Darcy03231]

Thanks for all the input! The town we live in has such a high water table - everyone has sump pumps! If I get a bigger house, which I would like, that is pretty much my only option. I live in a small town, so I have few options. Just trying to see what it would cost for a company to fix it. Thanks friends!!!

If your town has a high water table, there may be nothing you can do to completely get rid of the water and keep your basement dry.

We had an engineer come in first to figure out where the water was coming in from (we live in an area with a lot of rock. Hydrostatic pressure was pushing the water up through the floor). Once he figured that out, then he suggested a couple of ways fix it. We went with his #1 suggestion and so far we haven't had any more water.

 

[TaraPA]

We currently have 1 sump pump in our 2000 sq foot basement - and when we built the house we were required by the township to install the french drains. It was $8000 for the drains. We've not had a drop of water - yet, in the 5 years we've been here. We're finishing the basement this fall & winter, so we're keeping our fingers crossed! In our old house we did have water issues in the basement. We had someone come & "waterproof" it for us - he bascally just seemed to paint on a black waterproofing paint-type material. For $4500. We could have done that ourselves!


I agree I'd steer way clear of a house with 3 sump pumps - but like you said, if that's your only option in your area, and most houses have multiple sump pumps, you might not have any other choice.

Good luck!