Talty's Building Tips and Tricks

Can a Basement that Leaks be Safely Remodeled?

We recently got the opportunity to do a basement refinishing project in our area. The clients' have a growing family and they often get visits from out of town friends and family. A remodeled basement would add about 900 feet of living space to their Chicago-style cape cod bungalow, which is something they need. It is the most cost-effective solution in a strained economy for folks. We went in and gutted out the space and afterwards found significant water issues. So we contacted Perma-Seal to look at the basement job for us. The homeowners purchased their house in 2000 and since that time they have had water issues every year, some worse than others. Their basement was originally remodeled in the 1970's (it is a partially finished basement). After gutting the basement I took some pictures of the mold problems that need to be addressed. There were a host of leakage areas along the walls. The last flood they had was pretty bad and flooded the carpeting area, something that they had said had never happened before. We believe it was because water had seeped in over the foundation walls in that last big rain just after Christmas. We noticed immediately that the driveway was pitched toward the house and that this was causing water to pool at one of the seepage points.

We removed the damaged paneling only to discover that there had been drywall installed behind it. The drywall was saturated and in places very moldy.

Then we removed the drywall to discover that even the concrete walls (which had been painted years ago) had mold. The contractor from Perma-Seal arrives on Friday and we plan to meet with them to discuss the options for these homeowners. A dry, mold resistant basement is necessary if they want to invest thousands of dollars in remodeling.

test republish

Labels: basement flooding, basement remodeling, basement remodeling contractor, carpenter, chicago basement remodelers, mold issues, mold problems, Perma-Seal, remodel basement

Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Can a Basement that Leaks be Safely Remodeled?

Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Entering the Blogosphere!