My wife and I are moving soon, and we’ve found a house that we fell in love with. Unfortunately, it has a leak problem in the basement. On the seller’s disclosure, the owner said that during steady, heavy rains, water leaks in one corner of the basement, and though it hasn’t rained there a lot recently, there’s still a musty odor. The home inspector will be checking it out this week and will let me know how bad the problem is. The house was built in 1977 and has a poured concrete basement, which is partially finished. It is not in a floodplain that I can tell - there’s a small lake about a block away, but the house is a good 10 or 20 feet above it in elevation.
What sort of options do I have to fix this? Are there any techniques I should avoid? How much would this sort of thing cost to fix?
WOW! That is not something to overlook. I assume the seller is not willing to pay for it or give you a break on the price before you purchase? This can be a costly fix, as a duped job could cost you thousands if it’s not done right. I’d have it inspected like you already are, then get a contractor in there to give you an estimate on doing the patch correctly.
As for the musty smell - get a good dehumidifier and run it on 40% humidity for 1-2 months straight. That ought to take care of much of the smells…
I disclosed a leak problem in my former house when I sold it. The leak rendered the basement pretty much unusable as living space. You could do laundry in it, but you were never going to get rid of the leak (it was a block foundation) nor were you ever going to get rid of the musty odor.
Since you have a poured foundation you might be able to solve the problem. Things you might try include: re-grading the yard to pitch away from the house, digging some french drains, installing a sump pump, planting vegetation around the foundation, and sealing the basement with Kilz. If I were buying a house with a leaky basement, I’d call in a professional and ask for a quote to fix the problem before I put in a bid.
Leaky basements are tough to patch effectively.
Existing cracks tend to get larger over time.
Repairing properly from outside may require considerable excavating to get to the entire crack, and possible laying of drainage tile to divert water away.
You’ll also likely find your self looking into gutter extenders and other means to direct water away from the foundation.
What is the topography immediately around the home?
One possibility is to install a gravel-filled swale in the yard to direct water away from the problem area.
Plus, you’ve got the musty odor, which will require a dehumidifier as Phil notes.
Is the basement finished? If so, you will have problems with carpet, drywall, and furniture damage. If not, you still won’t want to store things in that part of the basement.
I tend to be suspicious, but I would not be surprised if the severity were somewhat worse than the seller describes - he is disclosing a known defect, but he has every incentive to minimize it (within reason).
I’d recommend not buying a home with known drainage problems.
Hmm, this sounds a lot worse than I thought. It’s a townhouse in a homeowner’s association, and I’ve asked the real estate agent to find out what the by-laws are and what maintenance I’m responsible for. I have the sinking feeling, though, that if it weren’t the homeowner’s responsibility, it would have been fixed by now.
I assume digging trenches and so forth would cost thousands of dollars. I was thinking more along the lines of the waterproof epoxy paint… but is that a gimmick?
The inspection will be done on Tuesday, and my offer is contingent on the inspection and an estimate to repair the basement leak, so I’m not locked into it yet. But I start my new job in mid-September and I need to move pretty fast. I really don’t want to rent an apartment and move again in six months or a year, especially since the company is paying for me to move.
If it’s a townhouse in an association then you need to talk to the builder for the association, as I’m pretty sure all additions/construction needs must go through them. My wife and I were in an association when we lived in Phoenix and we needed to pass everything past them.
You are not down and out yet, it seems this could be repaired before you even move into the place, or at least be a closing clause.
Waterproof epoxy paint isn’t going to help with water coming in at floor level.
Make sure your inspector checks the downspouts. We abated a great deal of dampness in our basement when we bought our house (built in 1937) when we had the gutters and downspouts cleaned out.
There is an “inside the basement” fix that doesn’t involve digging up around the foundation, but it does require taking out part of the concrete floor around the perimeter of the basement, where the floor and the wall meet.
Honestly, turn and walk away now. This could very likely become an ongoing issue that will never be fully resolved, and end up costing thousands of dollars.
Find another house.
I’d avoid the place myself.
If for some reason, it’s otherwise perfect, get multiple estimates from several different places. I speak from some experience here.
6-7 years ago, we found water in one corner of our basement (townhouse). This was right near a downspout, so we had that fixed so it did a better job of directing water away. We had the carpet replaced and the wall repainted and it seemed to be fine. 4 years ago we listed the house for sale and got a contract on it. Shortly thereafter, we found water in the same basement corner. We of course disclosed it, and got 4 estimates for solving the problem. Two of the places insisted we needed a french drain installed to the tune of 1600 dollars, two other places insisted it was just a draining issue that could be solved by regrading the soil near the foundation.
As it turned out, neither would have worked. Our next door neighbor solved the mystery - quite literally the day the buyers were prepared to walk from the deal. They had come, to meet with a drainage person (who didn’t show). Their realtor had given up and was dirving away, when the neighbor’s brother knocked on the door and said “I think I’ve found it”. It turned out, their air conditioner condenser’s drainage pipe had come loose and was no longer draining into a floor drain, but was instead leaking all over the floor - and seeping into our place. He’d found that the day before, which explained why suddenly, the area was no longer wet. Had he shown up at our door 10 minutes later, the sale would have fallen through. Talk about drama!!!
Anyway - you’ll get conflicting answers and explanations from different companies and solutions are iffy at best.
I am going to go against the trend here. No house is perfect, and the perfect houses out there are houses that the owner just hasn’t found the problems yet. Now water issues is a fairly big one, one that can bring rot, insects, mold, and if it goes far enough fish (ok not really), but that doesn’t mean it is not manageable.
Just take for what it is, it has a known problem which has a potential future expense, figure out how much that type of potential future expense is and factor it into the cost before deciding it you wish to buy it. This expense may include lose of usable living/storage space or possible water damage to property stored there, or corrective measures which may or may not work.
I am going to go against the trend here. No house is perfect, and the perfect houses out there are houses that the owner just hasn’t found the problems yet. Now water issues is a fairly big one, one that can bring rot, insects, mold, and if it goes far enough fish (ok not really), but that doesn’t mean it is not manageable.
Just take for what it is, it has a known problem which has a potential future expense, figure out how much that type of potential future expense is and factor it into the cost before deciding it you wish to buy it. This expense may include lose of usable living/storage space or possible water damage to property stored there, or corrective measures which may or may not work.
I am going to go against the trend here. No house is perfect, and the perfect houses out there are houses that the owner just hasn’t found the problems yet. Now water issues is a fairly big one, one that can bring rot, insects, mold, and if it goes far enough fish (ok not really), but that doesn’t mean it is not manageable.
Just take for what it is, it has a known problem which has a potential future expense, figure out how much that type of potential future expense is and factor it into the cost before deciding it you wish to buy it. This expense may include lose of usable living/storage space or possible water damage to property stored there, or corrective measures which may or may not work.
Wow… triple posts 40 minutes apart. Cool. 
FWIW I bought a house with a water damaged basement.
Before I moved in, the sellers had the downspouts directed all the way out to the street (downspouts directed into piped which went all the way to the drainage ditch). The worst area of the basement where the visible water damage was (beneath a downspout) is dry as a bone, and we just went through a “100 year’s flood” here in Ohio.
The sellers also had 3/4 of the foundation trenched (1/4 is against the garage), piped, and sealed with tar. Cost $6000 for about 750 feet.
I recently had to have a section re-done (grumble grumble) for $1500 and I also had my sump pump redirected out to the street - it was previously going to the middle of the yard. It is a very messy and ugly process that took 3 days (dig, tar, refill) and involved a lot of dirt, rocks and grass seed.
Anyhoo…that’s the extreme end of things. I am willing to bet you just have downspout problems since it’s just one corner. I’d get an estimate on just running the downspouts out to the street, and having your gutters cleaned (and then keeping them clean).
If you do buy the place don’t just paint over it. You need to dry out that block with a humidifier or the problem will continue.
Also…although my basement is dry now, it’s musty in the summer. Because it’s 20 degrees cooler than the rest of the house, especially at the floor. And I don’t keep any windows open because I’m lazy. During our heatwave condensation was pooling up on the floor. Sometimes a dehumidifier is a fact of life.
See if you can’t get the sellers to buy you one. Mine left me one, thank Og.