It’s quite common to see many homeowners complaining about leaky foundation or basement. However, it’s not always related to improper construction or occurrence of extraordinary catastrophe. Rather sometimes, it might be the result of time and nature forces that directly affected the home’s foundation and led to worse conditions like leaking basement.
Also, leakage has nothing to do with the type of foundation as well. It may occur to any foundation be it masonry or poured concrete. Yes, everything associated with a can be referred to a crawl space as well, which is actually a short basement albeit with a leaky foundation dirty floor. So, it’s crucial to get the basement checked as soon as it starts to leak. Initially, there might be some natural causes to the problem but if things are fine from that aspect, then it would surely some sort of disruption or flaws in the structure. So, let’s dig deeper and know the common causes of leakage in the basement.
Factors Behind Basement
- Hydrostatic Pressure: The first and one of the obvious causes of a leaky foundation or basement is water that is everywhere in the ground. It doesn’t matter if the area is dry or humid, its ground still has a water level that used to exert pressure on the home’s foundation. This level is called the water table whose location varies from one area to the other. However, its height is determined by the proximity to water bodies.
- Lateral Pressure: The area surrounding a home’s foundation between the surface and footings also has the ability to absorb water- opposed to the normal weather when it should drain. Loan, sand and other types of soils are pretty fast at draining. They do not absorb much water while those similar to clay soil have higher water absorption rate. The situation gets worse when the 10 feet wide area around the home has less compact soil. It was the original foundation excavation site that was backfilled afterwards. Upon expansion, the soil creates sideways or lateral pressure against the foundation, leading to severe causes to the foundation and causing leakage.
- Window Wells: The third cause of seepage in the foundation house Toronto is window well that is different from ground water pressure. Window wells give a passage to air and light to seep into the basement. It causes water to accumulate in the area, especially at the time of heavy rain when the drain is broken or clogged.
Sources of Basement Leaks
Other than that, in order to know the sources of basement leaks, homeowners have to start by identifying their impact on the home’s foundation.
- Floor Cracks: Since basement floors are made up of poured concrete having 2 to 4 inches depth, there is no structural strength that owners could rely upon.
- Cover Joint: The place where the poured concrete floor connects with the wall is called the cover joint. It may lose its place as the result of hydrostatic pressure.
- Wall Cracks: There might be non-structural cracks on the poured concrete walls that are either caused by the lateral pressure or dropping or minor settling of the foundation.
