When it comes to basement leaking where wall meets floor, we are talking about the cove. This is the area in which the basement floor of your home meets the wall. Due to the way your home is built, this area can become significantly prone to water penetration and leaking, as time goes on.
Thankfully, when it comes to dealing with basement cove leaks, you have solutions in place.
Dealing With Leaks Where The Wall Meets The Floor
Generally, when basements are built, concrete footers are poured and left to dry. Your walls are then established atop your footers. In the final stage, basement floors are poured atop the edges of footers, going against the walls of the basements. When your foundation goes through temperature/seasonal changes, all of these levels take punishment. All of them deal with this punishment in profoundly different ways.
With poor drainage or a clogged up footer drain, water from a rainstorm or underground spring can cause your water table to rise up your soil. This can go beyond the floor of your basement. Hydrostatic pressures will then force the water in throughout cracks/holes in your masonry joints. These cracks are of course formed by foundation elements expanding and contracting. At this point, you’re going to find yourself dealing with water in the cove area.
Relieving the water pressure from its underground source is a good solution. Installing footer drain tile systems can help you by draining away the water that is giving you a hard time. An outside footer drain can provide you with the best outcome possible. All of the outside soil should be excavated away from the perimeter of your home. You are also going to find that this approach is highly dependent upon having the proper elevations for your property. This can involve contacting engineers or surveyors. Using a drywell is generally not suggested, because it can be filled up with groundwater before the same happens to your basement. This can make everything even worse.
An interior drain tile is another possibility that you can explore. This method is considerably more straightforward, in addition to being less problematic. Trenches cut through your concrete floor around your basement perimeters is just the beginning. Hollow block walls will then drain the waters resting in your hollow cores. Sealing the interior walls, you can now re-cement your floor back to the original condition.
As you can see, there are obviously options to help you deal with the problem.
