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Fall basement foundation checklist

Posted Jul 01, 2024 in Waterproofing

A base­ment often acts as a valu­able exten­sion to the rest of your home. Whether you use it for extra liv­ing space or sim­ply for stor­age, reg­u­lar sea­son-spe­cif­ic upkeep is essen­tial for pro­tect­ing your home. As fall arrives, con­sid­er mak­ing a check­list of cold weath­er prepa­ra­tion tasks to help pro­tect both your fam­i­ly and your belong­ings as the tem­per­a­ture starts to drop.

Pipe care

One of the largest base­ment con­cerns when liv­ing in the Chicagoland area; is pipes freez­ing. When tem­per­a­tures drop below freez­ing, the water in your pipes can freeze and expand, caus­ing the pipe to burst. Not only can this cause seri­ous dam­age to your home, it can also cost you a lot of mon­ey in repairs. Use sim­ple meth­ods, such as pipe insu­la­tion, to help pro­tect pipes that are exposed to cold win­ter tem­per­a­tures, whether they’re run­ning through or into your basement.

Mold removal

If you’ve had a pipe burst or any oth­er issues with unwant­ed mois­ture in your base­ment, anoth­er item you should add to your check­list is mold removal. When mold takes hold, it can quick­ly spread under trim, car­pet, linoleum and across var­i­ous ser­vices of your base­ment. While not all molds are nec­es­sar­i­ly harm­ful, many can cause seri­ous health issues for those deal­ing with con­di­tions like asth­ma, aller­gies or emphy­se­ma. While some sur­faces like glass, met­al or oth­er non-porous mate­ri­als can sim­ply be cleaned with a mold removal prod­uct, oth­er items like car­pets, dry­wall or ceil­ing tiles will most like­ly need to be removed and replaced.

Water­proof­ing

If you’ve had reoc­cur­ring prob­lems with mold, you may want to con­sid­er water­proof­ing your home to help pre­vent future issues with mold devel­op­ment. While mois­ture in your base­ment can come from high humid­i­ty, which often results in water con­dens­ing on the walls, win­ter mois­ture issues are more com­mon­ly caused by out­side water sources. When out­side water is an issue, con­sid­er water­proof­ing your inte­ri­or or exte­ri­or walls. Inte­ri­or walls can eas­i­ly be pro­tect­ed by apply­ing a con­crete water­proof­ing coat­ing or a sil­i­cate-based con­crete seal­er. While inte­ri­or pro­tec­tion helps, it’s typ­i­cal­ly rec­om­mend­ed that you also water­proof the exte­ri­or of your home. While this option typ­i­cal­ly costs more and takes more time, you also ful­ly pro­tect your home from future water dam­age. When con­sid­er­ing a full-scale exte­ri­or water­proof­ing plan, it’s impor­tant to con­tact the indus­tries best, Fam­i­ly Water­proof­ing Solutions.

Foun­da­tion repair

Before water­proof­ing your base­ment, you may want to also con­sid­er repair­ing any cracks or oth­er issues with your foun­da­tion. The old­er your home, the greater chance you’ve prob­a­bly expe­ri­enced issues with stuck win­dows or creak­ing walls. These are often signs of foun­da­tion prob­lems, that while com­mon, can cause more seri­ous issues over time. Dur­ing the win­ter, mois­ture from rain and snow caus­es the soil around your foun­da­tion to expand. As warmer weath­er returns, the soil dries and returns to its orig­i­nal size. Often this expan­sion and con­trac­tion can take your house foun­da­tion with the soil, caus­ing cracks and insta­bil­i­ty. A foun­da­tion expert can help devel­op a plan to not only fix foun­da­tion issues and cracks but also help pre­vent them from occur­ring in the future.

While the ini­tial costs of some of these items may seem daunt­ing, the price tag is small when you com­pare it to poten­tial costs asso­ci­at­ed with remov­ing mold or water dam­aged sur­faces, or the gen­er­al health of your­self and your fam­i­ly. Luck­i­ly, you don’t have to go it alone. Con­tact your friends at Fam­i­ly Water­proof­ing Solu­tions today, to see how we can help pre­pare your base­ment for the win­ter months while pro­tect­ing your home and sav­ing you money.