Had a talk with my neighbor about foundation cracks and it changed my mind

My neighbor Dave came over last Saturday while I was sealing a crack in my basement wall. He said I should stop patching them and just get a proper drainage system installed. I figured he was just trying to sell me on some expensive contractor he knows. But then he showed me his own basement where he did the same patching i'm doing and it just cracked again after 6 months. Now i'm second guessing whether I should spend the $4k on weeping tile or keep doing the $20 tube of epoxy every season. Has anyone here actually had long term luck with the DIY crack repair kits?

2 comments

2 Comments

norag5510d ago

You said "i'm second guessing whether I should spend the $4k on weeping tile or keep doing the $20 tube of epoxy" and that really hit me. It's like how we all do with everything, right? We pick the cheap fix hoping it'll last, but deep down we know the real problem just keeps growing. I've seen this pattern at work and with my own house, you end up spending more time and money on bandaids than if you just bit the bullet once. Sometimes your neighbor Dave is annoying but he might be right that the foundation needs a real fix, not just another coat of glue.

sam_anderson9d ago

Knew a guy named Rick from my old softball league. He patched the same crack in his garage floor four times over two years. Fourth time the water pushed through and buckled the whole slab. Cost him $8k for a full replacement.