Advice for a leaky basement – GreenBuildingAdvisor

Here in the Pacific Northwest, we’re dealing with an atmospheric river and my friends basement is flooding. It’s happened a few times in recent years and they are at their wit’s end. I’m trying to help them with some ideas.

Situation:

– Older house with a concrete basement.

– Cracks in the basement wall that let water in during major rainstorms.

– Drainage in the yard behind the wall that has the problem is not great but  there is also no obvious fix (the neighbours lot is higher than theirs.)

– Digging down to the bottom of the foundation to install a waterproof membrane on the wall and a new drain tile is too expensive for them (they would sell the house instead.) It’s partly complicated because of specific on-site factors (e.g. would need to demolish a deck, some very mature landscaping, etc. to get machinery in and access the foundation wall from the outside.)

– The basement is finished. It’s ok if major renovations are needed but they would like to be liveable when all is said and done.

My thoughts:

– Let’s assume they need to fix this on the inside. They can start by removing the wood stud wall on the inside that holds up the drywall.

– They could then try an epoxy product (and maybe a paint on sealer after) to seal that entire wall.

– Then near the bottom of the wall, they could add weep holes to intentionally allow water in. That water could then go into a drain tile system that would be installed inside of the house along the edge of the basement floor. They might need to build a little curb wall when they re-finish to accommodate this.

– The water would flow to a sump in the basement where it would then be pumped out.

Does something like that sound reasonable? Are there are other things they should be considering? Any particular resources we should look at?