As you try to protect your home from seepage, you’ll find yourself contending with the Minnesota weather. It’s not just rainstorms and snowmelt that can invite water into your home. If you don’t make a point of installing waterproofing solutions or other protective measures around your home, you’ll make it easier for hydrostatic pressure to chip away at your structural supports and put your quality of life at risk.
How does seepage impact your home, and what steps can you take to keep it away?
Water in Your Basement
Sometimes, you won’t even notice the first signs of seepage due to their subtlety. It’s not just visible water, that gives away seepage. If you suspect something’s amiss in your basement, you’ll want to keep an eye out for:
- Foggy windows
- Damp walls
- Mold clusters
- Critter infestations
- Warping doorways
- Damp, porous objects, like your couch, carpet, or other fabrics
- Damaged personal belongings
Seeping water can get into your home through a variety of avenues, including:
- Window wells – If you have windows into your basement, you probably have window wells. Water readily follows the flow of gravity down into these wells, where it can damage the seals around your windows. Once those seals give, you’ll find yourself dealing with more moisture and standing water than is healthy.
- Foundation cracks – As hydrostatic pressure builds outside of your home, the materials that make up your foundation and basement can expand and contract. Too much stress generated in this way can result in cracks that allow that gathered water into your home. That said, it’s not easy to differentiate between a foundation leak and a basement leak. You’ll want to reach out to a local contractor if you start noticing any signs, like mold growth or damp walls, in your basement.
What Happens If You Don’t Repair Your Leaks?
It can be tempting to wait for a leak to dry up on its own time. Unfortunately, the longer you wait to deal with internal seepage, the more severe the damage you eventually have to deal with may be. An untreated leak can buckle your foundation and inflict long-term damage on your structural supports, destabilizing your home all the while.
Your concerns about the cost of repairing these sorts of leaks are understandable, but the unfortunate reality is that it’s often more expensive to leave them be.
Waterproofing Your Home
Preventing water seepage is a matter of working against the weather. You can install a number of waterproofing measures around your home that can whisk away the dampness that might otherwise compromise the structural integrity of your support beams or foundation.
Some of the waterproofing measures most effective at dealing with seepage include:
- Interior drains – If you’re concerned about widespread seepage, you can install an interior drainage system to catch leaking water and redirect it to a sump pump.
- Sump pumps – Sump pumps are best paired with the aforementioned drainage system for comprehensive coverage. Water collected by the interior drains is channeled to the sump pump, and this system safely and effectively removes the water from the basement.
- Vapor barriers – It is possible to install a vapor barrier in your basement, though the waterproofing measures are often more aptly used in a crawl space. When you use a vapor barrier on your basement walls, you are keeping water and gases out of the space, as well as allowing leaking water to run behind the waterproof material and down to the interior drainage system in the floor.
- Dehumidifiers – Excessively humid and damp basements are problems on their own, but too much moisture can lead to other issues like mold growth. Along with addressing the leaking water, you also need to reduce moisture and humidity with the help of a dehumidifier. Invest in an energy-efficient unit that cleans and filters the air, as well as reduces odors and the potential for mold growth.
You don’t have to let water seepage put a damper on your quality of life. You can reach out to a professional foundation, basement, and crawl space repair professional working in the St. Cloud, MN, area for guidance on the solutions that will suit you best. After a thorough home inspection, the experts from Innovative Basement Authority can provide you with a free quote on the services that can prevent water from seeping into your home.
