Rona in the basement, again
Last week, I thought I was all talked-out about wet basements. Here I am, again, in the basement.
With the snow melting, buyers are in the perfect position to discover wet basements. It is hard to hide a leaking basement during peak leaking season. Last weekend was peak. A combination of rain and melt made it a perfect storm for making indoor puddles. As a buyer’s agent, I am happy to see how basements hold up, or don’t, against the tide. I saw lots of damp spots, and some puddles. I heard sump pumps going. I also saw sump holes that were dry.
First, a little basic science. Water can pass through porous, but hard objects. Water, under enough pressure can pass through rock. Water is lazy; it goes where it flows easiest. Therefore, it takes pressure to make it flow through concrete or mortar into a basement. If it has an easier route away from where it is trapped, it will go there.
Frozen ground, rocks under the surface and other geological features trap water near basement walls and floors. Trapped water can gather enough pressure to pass through the concrete slab in a basement, or the mortar of a stone or concrete block foundation, or a crack in a concrete foundation. The result is wet basement. Also, low basement windows can become waterfalls for puddles that collect outside of them.
Houses at the bottom of a hill sort of expect to be wet. Water flows down and collects there, right? Well, not always. Sometimes the soil around and under that house allows the water to flow right on past the house. Sometimes houses higher up the hill have a chunk of rock beneath them that traps the water and an underground puddle forms above the rock; that trapped water forces its way into the house above. So, you can’t always tell if a house is prone to flooding by looking at where it sits on the land.
There are tell-tale signs: wet spots, stains on wood, musty smells, warped paneling or doors, stains around vinyl tile.
Today, I want to talk about how one agent handled a leaky basement this week. I was in a house where there was a puddle covering about a third of the unfinished part of the basement. The agent mentioned up-front that the basement was currently wet and that this was the extent of the problem. Half of this basement was finished (with carpet and paneling.) There was no sign of damage to those finishes. Her claim seemed feasible to me.
Leaving the leak is to opposite of what most owners and agents do when there is a leak while marketing the house. I found it a refreshing tactic.
However, I was not totally reassured that the water problem didn’t get worse when the rains came later on Sunday.
Would you be happier to see a wet wet basement as opposed to a cleaned-up wet basement? What did you see in the basement last weekend?
