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An all-too-common scenario: You have a wall crack in a poured foundation that occurred during construction of the house many years ago. At that time, you repaired the crack by sealing both the inside and outside of the wall with various materials. This repair lasted until this year when the crack started leaking again. You want to repair the crack professionally this time so that, in case you want to sell the house. You need a guarantee that the repair will last.

You had one national waterproofing company come by and appraise the situation. Their solution was to open up the crack, cover the crack with a plastic sheeting and a hard plastic wallboard, jackhammer up the floor beneath the crack, and allow the water to flow down the wall and under the basement floor into floor tile. The floor would be repaired once the wall was covered.



This approach does not agree with you. You would like to prevent the water from entering the basement period, not redirect the flow once it has entered. The representative said that to try to fix the crack might cause the wall to crack somewhere else, since this appears to be a stress crack.

What method(s) would other basement-waterproofing contractors use to repair wall cracks? No one certainly wants to cause another crack by sealing this one.

Answer:

There are several ways to fix wall cracks. First is Flexispan, a crack repair that seals the crack on the inside of the basement and allows excess seepage to drain under the floor. Next, one may use polyurethane injection which is a method in which liquid urethate is pumped into the crack thereby creating a solid rubber gasket in the crack that stays flexible. This repair is the complete thickness of the wall, sealing out the water. A third method is using epoxy to create a structural repair. This is a material that fills the crack but does not allow any movement.