How Can Water Get into My Basement?

Water can get into your basement through cracks in your foundation, but the matter is actually more complicated than that. To reach your basement, a variety of different forces, moisture included, can work against the structural integrity of your home. These forces can include: 

Water Begets Water 

The materials that make up your foundation are especially sensitive to changing temperatures. Come summer, you may find yourself contending with concrete creep, or the process through which concrete expands on a molecular level. Freezes can have a similar effect on your concrete, albeit in the opposite direction. The cooler the weather gets in your area, the smaller the molecules making up your concrete foundation are going to become. 

On average, frozen water particles expand by up to nine percent of their normal size. If those particles are absorbed into your concrete or any of the structural supports surrounding your home, you may find yourself contending not with slow damage but supports that seem to break open overnight. While a single freeze may not cause your foundation to crack, a series of freezes and warm days can. Unfortunately, there isn’t much you can do to control the temperature or the weather in general. You can, however, invest in the waterproofing measures that can keep moisture away from your home. If you think freezing weather is bad for your foundation, imagine what frozen moisture might do to its structural integrity. 

Other Causes 

That said, moisture isn’t the only force working against your home’s structural integrity. Insects like carpenter ants and termites will readily eat into your home’s wooden supports if given the opportunity. Burrowing animals like to make their nests beneath warm homes. The burrows animals like rabbits and groundhogs create can destabilize the soil around your home, creating an effect much like the Clay Bowl Effect. Your home can sink into those burrows, causing your foundation to buckle and other signs of structural damage to appear throughout all levels of your home. 

Tree roots can have a similar impact on your home’s overall structural integrity. Roots, like burrows, destabilize the soil beneath your foundation if they are planted too close to your home’s perimeter. In turn, your foundation may sink into the gaps these tree roots leave behind them, causing it to buckle and otherwise destabilize your home’s other structural supports. Waterproofing measures help prevent this kind of damage from evolving into a leak, but you may also want to work with the landscapers in your area to determine what means of protecting your home or treating your trees may suit you best.