Month: September 2016

Basement Challenges

September 21, 2016 / / 1 Comment

There are some downsides to living in a basement (who knew?!). These are amplified when it’s an old basement with brick walls, and even more when said walls have problems with moisture. We’re tackling the drainage project to hopefully address the biggest problem, which is water coming in. However, that isn’t going to solve everything. Because the roof, gutters, and siding are all problematic, water is coming into the brick wall above grade. Worse, the outside of the above-grade brick is parged in concrete, so the water has nowhere to go but inside. The result is humidity, mold, bugs, and brick efflorescence. None of these things is particularly pleasant to live with and none of them are solved by the drainage project. We plan to fix the roof, gutters, and siding, but there are a bunch of dependencies we have to do first, and that’s going to take some time.

Efflorescence

Efflorescence

We’re running a dehumidifier most of the time, as well as open windows and fans. We put a retractable screen door on the back door so we can improve the air flow there as well, but that doesn’t help when it’s muggy and rainy outside. We also picked up a used portable air conditioner from Craigslist on the cheap, but it’s missing some parts and we still have to get it hooked up. Hopefully between the two we can keep humidity under control. On top of that, we have good quality air filters running. We’ve sprayed for bugs a couple of times and picked up some stronger stuff to try on the centipedes. If it doesn’t improve, we’ll call in an exterminator.

We looked into painting the rest of the walls with Drylok, but that would actually make things worse. For one, Drylok is a water barrier, not a vapor barrier, so the moisture would still be coming through, which means it wouldn’t actually stop the efflorescence or humidity. On top of that, Drylok can actually host mold and make that problem worse. The only thing it might help with is closing up the hidey holes the bugs are living in and stop some of the fine brick dust from raining down on the curb.

We could remove the parging on the outside, but we’re pretty sure it wasn’t put up on a great-looking brick wall in the first place, not to mention the damage the parging has done to it since. Removing the parging would mean re-pointing (and replacing) a lot of brick. On top of that, we discovered the color of the face bricks on the front of the house is a rather, um, strong red, and we’re not big fans of it. That means the face brick would either have to be painted (and re-painted every 3-5 years), or replaced, both of which are pretty unappealing. In short, it’s an expensive project that probably wouldn’t actually solve the problem, because the underlying cause is the roof, gutters, and siding.

Since that’s not possible immediately, we’ll need to spray a mold remover/mildewstat/fungicide periodically and try to keep the efflorescence under control by cleaning it and spraying a water/muriatic acid solution. We put some of our wire shelving up against the outside wall, and at a minimum we’ll need to pull it back an inch or two, since as it is the efflorescence is snowing on our food (yuck). We discussed putting something between the brick and the shelf, but we’re concerned about anything that would reduce air flow across the brick and potentially make it easier for mold to grow.

All of that means that, in the end, we’re just living with these problems for the time being. Until we can stop the water from coming in, the basement is going to be somewhat unpleasant. That may rearrange some of the priorities on our project to speed up the outside, but it doesn’t change our immediate next steps: the drainage project and the second floor demo.

Thinking About Drainage

September 13, 2016 / / 2 Comments

We’re slowly getting settled into the basement. Even after a few weeks, we still have a lot of stuff strewn about upstairs that we’re working on moving, putting into boxes, or outright getting rid of. Sarah’s been on an IKEA kick, loading up our humble abode with storage, since we’re completely lacking in the closet department. It’s starting to feel like home, though it definitely feels like a basement. Meanwhile, we’re thinking about next steps. After all, the whole point of moving into the basement is to get the rest of the project done. The next major step is second floor demo. We want to get that done before winter hits, mostly so that we can work inside all winter. However, we have to finish the aforementioned moving and clearing before that happens. We’ve also decided we need to make our drainage project happen sooner rather than later.

The drainage project was something we were planning to do in the landscaping phase, but the rainy weather has underscored that we need to control the flow of water into our basement. Essentially, it’s a just-below-grade weeping system that will wrap around the front and side of our house. The reason this was slated for the landscaping phase is that the goal is to drain this into a rain garden/water feature in the back yard. However, right now our back yard is mostly patio and we plan to keep it that way so we can bring in the parade of dumpsters and trucks that will get this project done. Instead, we’ll drain into our canceled catch basin for the time being and redirect it later. Our catch basin is filled with gravel, but it can still hold a couple-few hundred gallons of water, keep it away from the house, and drain into subsoil, all of which are critical to our basement staying dry.

The plan is to dig up the cracked and crumbling sidewalk along the side of the house, dig a trench that slopes to the center about a foot deep, and put down a plastic landscaping barrier that’s caulked to both our house and the neighbors. We’ll put perforated pipe in the bottom and backfill with stone. Lastly we’ll put in paver step stones in place of the sidewalk. As I said, the pipe will drain to the catch basin in the back yard for the time being and eventually drain to a water feature. We’ll put in connections so that when we redo the roof and gutters, the downspouts can drain into the system as well.

The drainage will eventually continue across the front of the house, minus the pavers, since we’re putting a new front porch over it. Ideally we’d have a proper exterior weeping system, which is a drainage pipe around the outside of the foundation at the bottom of the basement wall. Unfortunately, we’re very close to our neighbors. The North side of our house literally sits on the property line and both sides are between 3-4 feet away from the houses next door. Excavating down to the bottom of the 120-year-old brick wall risks not only our own structure, but the neighbors as well. The drainage project we’re doing is basically a compromise because the pipe won’t be below the frost line. If it got cold enough, especially after a snowmelt or heavy rain, it’s possible for the whole thing to freeze up. That said we believe it will keep the vast majority of water away from our foundation and out of our basement.

The dumpster is on order, and the project kicks off in a couple days. We need to get everything dug out in a week so that the dumpster can go back on time, but after the basement dig out, I’m not too worried about that. Once that’s done we need to get the barrier and pipe installed, then get some pea gravel delivered. Finally, we need to pick out some pavers. That’s the fun part.