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Is this bad?
Dec. 4th, 2007 12:56 pmWe have a little water in the garage. I think this is not a problem but I wanted to ask. Let me describe the house, first, starting from the garage and basement, and working up.
We live on a steep hill, and we have a basement-level garage. (Technically something like 80 square feet of it is officially "basement" and the rest is officially "garage," this having to do with whether there is more house over it. But really it's all connected, which makes this confusing.) 1/2 level up (and substantially but not completely offset - that 80 square foot overlap again) there is the ground floor, which is two to three three feet below ground in front, and is completely underground in back. The main floor above that is completely above ground in front (actually about seven or eight feet above the ground) and about three feet underground in back. If it wasn't for the retaining wall, it would be completely underground in back, too. Then above that is the top floor, above ground everywhere, even without the retaining wall.
Now, back down to the garage: the cement garage floor is a separate pour from the foundation/basement wall at the back of the garage. There's a small gap between the two pours, probably about, hum, 2mm? Along that gap, water wicked in from apparently below. I use the word "wick" because for the most part none actually made it even all the way up to the floor, except where a couple of floor mats were placed against the wall. These got soaked.
The foundation/basement wall segments stayed apparently dry the entire time, but a couple of rugs got soaked.
As far as I can tell, this is just a result of the near-record(?) water levels of the last couple of days showing up in our basement/garage level and is not actually a problem. But I could be wrong and would like to know that if so! I note that the stairwell down to the basement/garage bottom level is made of treated wood at the bottom stair, and not so at the stairs higher up, which indicates to me that the builders kind of expected this.
Also, the crawlspace behind the ground floor and beneath the main floor, in back, stayed dry.
So. I think I'm right and this is mostly okay, but am I wrong?
And is caulking that gap with industrial paving caulk a bad idea?
We live on a steep hill, and we have a basement-level garage. (Technically something like 80 square feet of it is officially "basement" and the rest is officially "garage," this having to do with whether there is more house over it. But really it's all connected, which makes this confusing.) 1/2 level up (and substantially but not completely offset - that 80 square foot overlap again) there is the ground floor, which is two to three three feet below ground in front, and is completely underground in back. The main floor above that is completely above ground in front (actually about seven or eight feet above the ground) and about three feet underground in back. If it wasn't for the retaining wall, it would be completely underground in back, too. Then above that is the top floor, above ground everywhere, even without the retaining wall.
Now, back down to the garage: the cement garage floor is a separate pour from the foundation/basement wall at the back of the garage. There's a small gap between the two pours, probably about, hum, 2mm? Along that gap, water wicked in from apparently below. I use the word "wick" because for the most part none actually made it even all the way up to the floor, except where a couple of floor mats were placed against the wall. These got soaked.
The foundation/basement wall segments stayed apparently dry the entire time, but a couple of rugs got soaked.
As far as I can tell, this is just a result of the near-record(?) water levels of the last couple of days showing up in our basement/garage level and is not actually a problem. But I could be wrong and would like to know that if so! I note that the stairwell down to the basement/garage bottom level is made of treated wood at the bottom stair, and not so at the stairs higher up, which indicates to me that the builders kind of expected this.
Also, the crawlspace behind the ground floor and beneath the main floor, in back, stayed dry.
So. I think I'm right and this is mostly okay, but am I wrong?
And is caulking that gap with industrial paving caulk a bad idea?
