Should You Waterproof Your Basement On Your Own?

If you’re the type of person who likes to take matters into their own hands, you may be tempted to try and repair any damage caused by the clay bowl effect on your own. While DIY efforts can work well in other parts of your home, they’re not always the best solutions to work with when the structural integrity of your house is at risk. DIY repairs also tend to be more costly than professional repairs, especially if you’ve never worked with the structural supports in your basement before.

DIY Expenses

As mentioned, DIY work can get expensive quickly. To get started, you’ll need to go about purchasing the tools and the materials you need to stabilize the soil around your home, then repair any damage done to your foundation, basement, or crawl space. If you’re able to find these tools—and some are more specialized than others, especially if you want to mudjack your soil—then many of them will be of one-time use. You may need to calculate the cost of extra material, as you can make several mistakes during the DIY repair process.

If you choose to work with professionals, you can avoid several of these start-up costs. Professionals already have access to the tools they need to stabilize the soil around your home. Similarly, many professionals can secure discounts on the materials you need to repair any damage done to your basement.

The Trouble With DIY Mistakes

Unless you have extensive experience repairing your own basement and foundation, you’re probably going to make mistakes while attempting DIY repairs. While, under other circumstances and on other jobs, mistakes aren’t the end of the world, they can cause a whole mess of problems for an unprepared homeowner.

If you think you’ve repaired the damage that’s been done to your basement, you may let the space go for an extended period of time without having it inspected. In these situations, the damage you’ve let sit can worsen. You may even find yourself contending with damage that extends down into your foundation, depending on what kind of DIY repairs you tried to implement. Professionals, comparatively, can see to it that the damage that’s been done to your basement is rectified without putting the overall stability of your property at greater risk.