The Challenges of Wet Basements: A Comprehensive Approach

Oh, richard, what have we got here? Got a lot to demonstrate for you. I thought we'd talk about wet basements. Oh, I hate wet basements. Most people do. You know only 40% of American houses actually have a basement at all, that's few right. And 60% of them are wet. That's me okay.

The challenge is it's a bunch of jurisdictions we have to think about. You know we're trying to keep water from coming from outside in generally and it could be ground water it could be coming up this way it could be from snow so let's start outside the building to keep it outside. It could be in the jurisdiction of the landscaper. May be that the grade comes towards the house and snow and rain comes this way trying to work its way in.

So you at least have downspout extensions that can make that water convey away. I don't think people realize that thousands of gallons of water could come off your roof. Arrangements absolutely so now it comes down and you try to get it away but sometimes you just can't the grade doesn't allow it. So many people it's a big industry in this country might do a French drain around the outside of the building in that case all that water that gets collected it moves its way without a pump to daylight. And that's great if you can do it if you can do it so that's all the sort of the water you can control.

But there's also water vapor that wants to work its way through. Think about the construction material of any foundation. It's either poured concrete, concrete block, or rubble stone. None of those are watertight they're porous too right. I mean you can get vapor going through them. So people will try to seal that up with all sorts of hydraulic cement or epoxy paints to try and control that.

And you really have to because mold is going to grow anytime you have three things moisture, temperature, and organic material. Organic materials in almost everything that we build a house with right two by fours oh yeah the back side of sheetrock wood right all that stuff. So if you get this water vapor moving through moving through well let's let's do this let's try to seal it maybe with poly up against the foundation wall to try and make that water stay up and it condenses and works its way down into here and goes away.

But you also have the issue with coming up through the floor. Make this material which is pretty interesting. It's got a standoff right here and that just keeps it up this acts as a bit of a vapor barrier and so now you've got a little bit of organic material here but at least you've got a place for moisture to stay and not wick and condense up into the room right so that's a good thing. But it's still a challenge.

Control the humidity

You're limited by gravity, but what they've got nowadays is they've got all these models now that also come with a pump built in. Oh okay so now this is not just not just the attachment for the hose correct but something to push it out and this can pump up 16 feet and once you get to 16 feet by gravity it'll go the rest of the way so so you can pretty much put this in never never worry about just set it for 30 35 and be done. But you want the right amount of humidity not too much not too little beautiful all right.

So I got to control the water and I got to control the humidity which one of these are going to your house thank you richard.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enoh richard what have we got here got a lot of demonstration for you i thought we'd talk about wet basements oh i hate wet basements most people do you know only 40 of american houses actually have a basement at all that few right and 60 of them are wet that's me okay so the challenge is it's a bunch of jurisdictions we have to think about you know we're trying to keep water from coming from outside in generally and it could be ground water it could be coming up this way it could be from snow so let's start outside the building to keep it outside it could be in the jurisdiction of the landscaper it may be that the grade comes towards the house and snow and rain comes this way trying to work its way in so you at least have downspout extensions that can make that water convey away i don't think people realize that thousands of gallons of water could come off your roof and arrangements absolutely so now it comes down and you try to get it away but sometimes you just can't the grade doesn't allow it so many people it's a big industry in this country might do a french drain around the outside of the building in that case all that water that gets collected it moves its way without a pump to daylight and that's great if you can do it if you can do it so that's all the the sort of the water you can control but there's also water vapor that wants to work its way through so think about the construction material of any foundation it's either poured concrete concrete block or rubble stone none of those are watertight they're porous too right i mean you can get vapor going through them so people will try to seal that up with all sorts of hydraulic cement or epoxy paints to try and control that and you really have to because mold is going to grow anytime you have three things moisture temperature and organic material organic materials in almost everything that we build a house with right two by fours oh yeah the back side of sheetrock wood right all that stuff so if you get this water vapor moving through moving through well let's let's do this let's try to seal it maybe with poly up against the foundation wall to try and make that water stay up and it condenses and works its way down into here and goes away but you also have the issue with coming up through the floor that make this material which is pretty interesting it's got a standoff right here and that just keeps it up this acts as a bit of a vapor barrier and so now you've got a little bit of organic material here but at least you've got a place for moisture to stay and not wick and condense up into the room right so that that's the barrier right there and the standoffs allow for air movement that's right a little bit a little bit of drying yeah just keep keeping waking up so so let's talk about humidity the amount of humidity you know we we need some humidity but we don't need too much we all know what a hundred percent humidity is oh you brought your students i did how do you share it yes i should actually take it off um so that's a hundred percent you can see it it's visible and we certainly would know zero percent in the american southwest everything you touch you get electric static you're really looking for this happy place about 25 to 30 percent is the best place for a human and for the building to have a little bit of moisture in it too much and you start getting into the place where that mold really wants to build right and it's just uncomfortable sixty seventy percent humidity basement it's just gross so most people their only choice is some sort of dehumidifier and i just gotta yeah i gotta tell you the dehumidifier is really nothing more than an air conditioner that doesn't quite have enough power to actually cool the air it just has a cold enough coil for water to condense and come out of solution okay think about a cold glass filled with ice water on a hot day water will always form because this is a colder surface and that's what happens inside of a dehumidifier so these are measured also in pints the you know you can get residential portable dehumidifiers that can take up to 50 pints per day 50 of these that's a good friday night a residential built-in unit can do a hundred pints or more in a day but in the residential ones they're pretty straightforward power button here here's your humidity readout and plus or minus for your desired setting what's happening is it is pulling in moist air right here it's pulling it across you see this coil right here this will get cold right and what will happen is water will drop down into a bucket right here and the dehumidified air will come out here into the room so that moist air hits the coil and that's where the condensation condenses condenses and just drops into a bucket so for most people this is this is what they have so there's a bucket underneath it yeah okay and when you when you turn that off i'm going to turn this off so this is so this is about a 10-pounder or something like that so that means with this you have to come down and change this with some regular but they also have a drain connection that allows the water to fall into the bucket but that drain connection can also be used with a conventional garden hose right here so that you wouldn't have to empty the bucket the water could convey to a floor drain so if you've got a sink a utility sink in the basement this is sitting on the floor it's not going to work its way up nope into the sink so we find people putting these up on shelves at the high point in their garage high point of their basement is that you okay and so you're limited by gravity but what they've got nowadays is they've got all these models now that also come with a pump built in oh okay so now this is not just not just the attachment for the hose correct but something to push it out and this can pump up 16 feet and once you get to 16 feet by gravity it'll go the rest of the way so so you can pretty much put this in never never worry about just set it for 30 35 and be done but you want the right amount of humidity not too much not too little beautiful all right so i got to control the water and i got to control the humidity which one of these are going to your house thank you richard thanks for watching this whole house has got a video for just about every home improvement project so be sure to check out the others and if you like what you see click on the subscribe button make sure that you get our newest videos right in your feed\n"