BASEMENT MOISTURE/HUMIDITY

thanks so much for taking the time to help me out with the suggestions.

You should call contractor who can help you. I think they might have to dig 2-3 feet then do cement. If you ask a contractor then he should be able to help you. It depends on what is length of the building. I know a contractor who worked my house but nothing like this, but he is very reliable. CTG Construction call at 718-669-8305 and ask for Millad. They are really nice and very gentle. Hope this is help. I am sure this might cost you around 3-4k, but i might be wrong, but do call them.

Good luck

I am a woodworker, not a mason.  It may be that I should not be commenting on this but I will share with you some things I have heard and seen over the years, particularly since I am from out on Long Island where there is a high water table and have watched people struggle with these problems.

I am assuming from what you say that the problem is on the exterior walls, not the wall between the two buildings.  If it were the wall between the two buildings, I would say there is a leak someplace or the problem is condensation, but even that I would find questionable.  You say that this occurs after a rain.  My guess is that there is not sufficient drainage back there – both near your basement and farther away, say near the rec yard.  unfortunately all of that water is being pushed by the weight of the water behind it toward your basement wall.  There are several soutions any one of which may or may not work (and remember, this is not my forte, so you have to take what I say and go investigate it further).  First, my mother had this problem and she had someone dig a trench along the entire side of the foundation and apply tar from 6″ above the ground to the bottom of the foundation.  It worked – but I know three other people who tried this in differing circumstances and it did not work.  It seems the water gravitated down and came up underneath; remember, if there is a lot of water there after the rain and the weight of all the water behind it is working on it (that is a lot at 8 lbs a gallon), pushing it along.  What people seem to do when the problem is temporary, ie caused by rain, is build some sort of french drain.  Now, I have no idea where in your yard this would go.  I am not sure if right up against the house is the spot or further away to try to capture some of the water and move it either away or down before it get so to close to the house.  If you dig a french drain a few feet away and go deep with it – I did one in my back yard with a 6 or 8″ drain pipe set in a column of rock down about 8 feet, all of this was fed by another channel of rocks which runs the length of my driveway – it may direct the water down before it gets near the house; the weight of the water up above the lower part of the drain will push it down and disperse it into the soil (I think – this is the reasoning I used when building mine – which works).  Whatever you do, I would try to get that water down as deep as possible a few feet from your house.  I would also try to make the drain – a combination of stone and pipe with holes in it (I covered mine with a cloth made to keep the soil out) deeper than your foundation.  I would also consult someone before doing any of what I just say; when I built mine I was “experimenting.”

Now, I have an aunt on eastern LI whose house actually sits a little below the water table.  Her basement contiually fills with water in the wet season – even days or weeks after the last rainfall.  Sealing the sides was not an option as the water would come up from below and the same for the french drain; it would fill and the water would just contiue along to her basement.  What she had down was a channel cut in the basement which caught all the water and directed it to a pit where a sump pump lifts it out through a pipe and into the stream behind the house where it begins the process all over again.  I doubt this is what you need; check out french drains.

Hope I was a help and please do not put too much weight into any one thing I said.

Steve