Basement Walls Waterproofing
Now you have learned that waterproofing your basement requires different processes. If you think that you really need to waterproof your basement, it is necessary to follow all the steps mentioned above to guarantee that your basement will be successfully waterproofed.
Now that you have done the basic steps in checking the place that surrounds the foundation, you now can start the actual waterproofing of your entire basement. The best thing you can do is to use products like Xypex or Drylok. The Drylok is not considered as a water sealer but something more of a waterproofer. This one expands as it slowly dries and integrates itself on the wall. The Xypex is something like applying a waterproofing concreted direct to the surface where it also bonds itself on the walls.
After that, you can start doing some repairs to the cracks in the concrete walls and also those areas where the pipes and the tie rods come together to the concrete. For these cracks to have no thermal or structural movement, you can use the Drylok Fast Plug. This is proven effective in masonry for sealing cracks.
Introduction on Ventilation home
Air movement quickly dries wet material. To demonstrate, soak three towels in water. Hang one in still air, hang one in front of an operating fan, and place the third in a closed container. Barring some extremely abnormal event, the towel in front of the fan will dry first. The one in still air will dry next. The third, inside the closed container, will probably begin to sour, and then deteriorate, but not dry, because the air within the container has become saturated, and can not absorb any more moisture from the towel. Therefore, moisture remains in the towel. Combining the wet towel, oxygen, and favorable temperature within the container, a decay promoting environment exists.
Inspecting buildings over the past ten to fifteen years, we have noticed more and more property damage resulting from moisture exposure. This is possibly because construction practices, over the same period, have developed tighter buildings, primarily in an effort to conserve energy. These observations have reinforced our belief that ventilation is one of the homeowner's best friends when it comes to limiting property damage due to moisture, mold, and even termites.
By definition, ventilation is changing or replacing air in a space. For our purposes, we will consider ventilation as air movement, because if air moves, it must be replaced, unless the air movement creates a vacuum. Ventilation can be used to remove odors or excessive moisture, to introduce outside air, to circulate interior building air, and to prevent stagnation of interior building air.