Today is supposed to be the last post about our big summer project: waterproofing our basement.

Here are the previous posts if you need to get caught up:

• An intro to our leaky basement
• Comparing interior and exterior waterproofing options
• How we waterproofed our basement from the inside

However, I can’t wrap up this project because a week ago we had a torrential downpour and we had puddles in the basement. Wah-wah.

The first leak was in the laundry room and the second in the cold cellar–two places we’d waterproofed.

In the cold cellar, it appears to have come up through the shiny new floordrain.

In the laundry room, it somehow somewhere came through the wall. The rain was an extraordinary downpour, but nonetheless, my expectation from our waterproofing is that we would be waterproof.

The big selling point of working with our waterproofing company is that the work came with a lifetime guarantee, so we’re working with them now to make sure our leaks are truly fixed.

In the meantime, I can share some of our progress. Here’s the biggest illustration–and one area that doesn’t leak anymore:

Before (ish)

After with framing, insulation, drywall, paint, carpet and baseboard all redone.

I think the thing that frustrated me the most with this project–aside from the fact that the leaks are not actually fixed–is that we ended up basically back where we started. We shelled out a bunch of money, put in a bunch of work and it all looks the same.

But looks aren’t everything.

With home ownership, what’s behind the walls matters a lot. So that’s why it’s so important to us to fix our leaks, not just cover them up or ignore them.

Last week’s rain was a bit extreme. Up to then, we had a few other rainfalls without issue. In fact the night the crew left, we had our first big rainstorm of the summer. Matt and I were sitting in the living room, and I said, “I think I hear the sump pump.” Sure enough, rain was falling hard enough that the water was flowing through the weeping tile around the foundation and filling the sump pit. Talk about timing.

We love the assurance of our new sump pit and pumps. There are two pumps in our pit. One is a regular pump that is plugged into a regular electrical socket. The second is a back-up pump and it is plugged into a giant marine battery.

If for any reason the first pump gets overwhelmed or stop working (like the power goes out), the second one will kick in automatically. Considering that power outages are a real possibility during rainstorms, we feel very good about our back-up system.

The pumps have two alarms. The first will sound if the back-up pump comes on and second very, very loud alarm will go off if both pumps for some reason fail.

I also appreciate the finish both inside and out. In the cold cellar, the dirt and footings around the perimeter are gone in favour of clean smooth concrete. And the crew did a great job of making the new concrete nice and even with the existing floor. Where the exterior waterproofing happened outside the laundry room, again the wall looks super clean, even though we appear to still have some problems here.

At the doorway to the cold cellar, where I always did a little hop across the dirt at the threshold, the floor drain is a nice addition. The floor drain ties into the weeping tile which in turn ties into the sump pit. Given the water we found in the cold cellar, I surmise that there was so much rain that it overwhelmed the weeping tile and spewed out of the drain.

So unfortunately, I can’t say we’re all done. We’re hoping we get there soon, and I’ll be sure to share when we do.Save

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