Exterior Waterproofing for Greenfield homes
Drive through Greenfield and the postwar years are everywhere: ranch houses and Cape Cods built in the 1950s and 60s, most of them sitting on concrete block basements. Block was quick to lay, and it held up well for decades. The weak spot is the mortar. After decades of Wisconsin frost and wet clay, those joints open up in a stair-step pattern, and the hollow cores inside the block fill with water that seeps out at the base of the wall.
Sealing the inside of a block wall traps water in those cores. Working from outside keeps it out of the block in the first place. We dig to the footing, clean the face of the wall, repoint and repair the stair-step cracks, and coat it with a liquid waterproof membrane. Dimple board goes on over the membrane. At the footing, new weeping tile goes into washed gravel, and we backfill and grade the soil so it falls away from the house.
Plenty of these basements still run on the sump setup that came with the house, or an old clay tile line that quit years ago. When we inspect, Nick or Luis checks the walls for movement, looks at the sump and where it discharges, and tells you honestly whether a cracked wall needs bracing before any waterproofing goes on. If it does, structural work comes first. You get a written quote, and when the City of Greenfield requires a permit, we handle it.
