Last night, we met with a sales guy from “American Dry Basement Systems, Inc” regarding our basement water problems. It was a particularly good time, as water is still coming up through the cracks in the floor. He was nearly beside himself when we went downstairs, getting very excited as he was pointing out most of the obvious things that I already knew.

What they are proposing to do is to open up sections of the basement floor around the footing, leaving other sections of the floor intact, still resting on the footing so the whole floor doesn’t float. Then place “flow channels” with a “polymetric drain” around the inside of the footing, essentially a French drain under the basement floor. The drain will empty into two sumps, to be pumped out whenever the water rises. The polymetric drain is 4 inch corrugated ADS, but I suppose “polymetric drain” sounds better. He is a sales guy after all, and I didn’t tell him I was an engineer.

This actually makes good sense, as the water table is very high around here. We have a spring in the back yard, above the elevation of the foundation. I can see where the water is coming up under the basement floor.

Then, he is proposing to “superslurry” the lower part of the block walls where the paint is pealing off and fill in any cracks between the blocks with superslurry, then seal up the holes in the floor with 6,800 PSI concrete.

The whole presentation was a little sales pitchy, however, I did not get a “sleeze” feeling. I decided to do some on line research while my wife kept the guy distracted in the dining room. I didn’t find anything negative about the company. A search through the Better Business Bureau showed that over the last three years they have had eight complaints (fairly low, actually) and only one remained unresolved. They have a valid contractor’s license and carry a valid insurance certificate, both of which were readily produced when I asked for them.

It just seems a little pricey for the work that they will be doing, but then again, it always does. I am in the process of calling some references today. I will post an update when I am done.

Update: We have called several references and they were all very postive, so it looks like we are going to do this on Monday.  I will take lots of pictures and such.

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