DIY Foundation Repairs - Part 1 Dig

This is a step by step process, in pictures, of how to make poured concrete foundation repairs. On the right you will see a picture of the crack in the foundation of my home. We only recently acquired this house, and even had a building inspector come in and check it out - for big bucks of course. It got a clean bill of health. What a joke. Check out this crack! There was some snow on the ground when he came to check it out, but don't you think it would be standard procedure to push the snow out of the way at least a little bit to see what's under it? Especially when the crack is so obvious and the crack shows above ground?

Anyway, we discovered the wet basement in the spring when it flooded a corner of the rec room and soaked the carpet. Apparently there are lots of surprises when you buy a used house, or even a new one I guess, but this was an expensive repair that we hadn't really counted on. Fall was the time to fix it and I didn't have a clue as to how to do it myself. So I called the professionals. And got a professional price of $1500. That hurt! I agreed to pay, but decided that I would not pay again to have a basement waterproofed, but instead would document what they were doing every step of the way, take pictures, and tackle it myself if it leaked again. So far it hasn't.

So, the pros show up - three of them. They start digging by hand. They didn't bring a machine to do the digging, but this house is a back split and the leak was in the semi-basement portion, so they didn't have all that far to dig. I think I lost a Rose of Sharon in the digging process. It might survive, but at the moment it's a little crooked. They said I could publish their pictures as long I didn't show their faces, so here are the headless workmen, digging up a storm.

As they dig deeper they discover that someone had tried to patch this crack years earlier but had not done it correctly. This waterproofing process does not work if you don't dig deep enough, clean out the crack properly, use enough plastic cement or plastic as it will just leak again. Notice the small repair patch and the plastic peeling off the black tar in the picture. You can compare this with the picture in part 2 after the repair - notice the difference in area covered.

Even though the crack was exposed, they weren't finished digging. They kept digging until the footings were exposed. Note: This has to be a good sized hole, as a person has to be able to stand, sit and work comfortably in there.

So this is what the footing of a house looks like. Keep digging until you can see it. And don't bang it too hard with your shovel, cuz you might break it or something. Notice that it's got gravel all around it? That's for drainage, so the water doesn't seep into your basement instead of into the ground.

continued in Part 2

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