Basement Waterproofing, Foundation Repair & Sump Pump Installation in Chicago, IL

A finished basement in Logan Square is somebody's spare room until the June storm that puts an inch through it. What makes this city awkward is that the water has two ways in. It comes through the wall from ground that will not drain, and it comes up the floor drain when the sewer in the street runs out of room. People here usually arrive having already read up on interior systems, which is fair, because that is only half the answer.

The inside work handles the wall side. A channel at the base of the wall collects what comes through the footing joint and carries it to a pump instead of across the floor. Outside, grading and downspouts get corrected so roof water is not being added to ground that cannot take it. On a wall genuinely passing water, and where a dig is possible on a city lot, a membrane goes on the outside face.

None of that stops a sewer backing up, and we will say so plainly when that is what you have. In Bridgeport it turned out to be the sewer rather than the walls, and saying so cost us the job. The inspection is free.

Chicago houses are old and a good many of them sit on made ground, filled and levelled long before anybody was checking what went into it. A bungalow in Portage Park that has been fine since the 1920s can start moving because a footing has finally found the soft spot underneath it. Upstairs you see it first: a door that stopped latching, a crack out of a window corner, a floor off level in one room.

Underpinning is the usual answer. Supports go down until they reach ground that will carry the load, and brackets transfer the weight of the house onto them. Where the house can come back up, the lift happens in stages over a couple of days so old plaster and brick travel with it rather than tearing. Where it cannot, the house gets held where it is. A rebuilt footing, a new support beam or slabjacking are the right answer on plenty of houses instead.

Not every crack means a pier. In a house this age some of them stopped moving before you were born. In Albany Park we said exactly that and left. Someone looks before anyone quotes.

The storms that flood a Logan Square basement are the same storms that take the power out, which is why the pump that has coped for ten years fails on the one night it mattered. On a flat lot the water arrives all at once rather than trickling in, so what counts is how much the pump can move per minute and what happens when the electric goes.

The pit is cut at the low point and lined so the surrounding ground cannot wash into it. The pump sits on a solid base rather than in the silt, and a check valve stops the pipe draining back into the pit on every cycle. The discharge has to run well clear of the house and, on a city lot, not into the neighbor's gangway, which is a genuine constraint here rather than a nicety. A battery backup covers the outage.

Where a pump is cycling because a downspout is dumping at the corner, that is what we will tell you. In Avondale that has been the answer more than once. We will check yours for nothing.

A yard that stays soft for days after everyone else's has dried out is telling you something. Heavy clay will not let the rain soak away, and on ground as flat as this there is nothing to carry it off, so it sits until it finds the lowest opening. On a standard Bridgeport lot that is usually the gangway and then your foundation.

A french drain gives it a route it prefers. A trench is cut where the water is actually travelling, perforated pipe goes in wrapped so fine clay cannot silt it up, and it beds in washed stone laid to a fall. Because there is no natural fall here, that fall gets built, so the depth at each end is worked out before anything is dug. Where it discharges matters just as much, and on a narrow lot the options are limited.

It will not help a basement that floods because the sewer backed up. Those are different problems with different answers. In Portage Park the downspouts were most of it. Having someone look costs nothing.

Most of Chicago has a basement, so a crawl space usually turns up under a rear addition, a porch that got enclosed, or one of the older worker cottages in Pilsen and Bridgeport. Nobody has been under there in twenty years and it shows. What people notice is upstairs: a cold floor, a smell in the hall that comes and goes, a back room that never dries out.

Encapsulation closes the path between that ground and your house. A heavy liner goes across the ground and up the walls, sealed at the seams and fastened rather than tucked, and the vents get closed so outside air stops cycling damp through the space. Where the ground is genuinely wet a drain and a pump go in first, because sealing over standing water only hides it. A dehumidifier holds the space afterwards, sized to the volume.

It is not insulation and it will not lift a sagging floor. Those are separate jobs and we will tell you which one you actually need. In Humboldt Park the drain went in first. Having it looked at costs nothing.

Nearly every basement from Beverly to Rogers Park has a crack in it somewhere. A poured wall shrinks as it cures and leaves fine vertical lines that have been there since the house went up. What matters is whether the one you are looking at is letting water through, and whether it has changed since you last paid attention to it. A crack you can slide a coin into, or one wider at one end than the other, is a different conversation from a hairline.

Where the wall has stopped moving, resin injected under pressure fills the crack right through to the outside face so there is no void left for water to sit in. Polyurethane suits a crack that is actively leaking, because it foams and chases the water. Epoxy suits a dry crack that needs its strength back. Where the wall has not stopped, carbon or steel goes across the crack first, and the drainage outside gets dealt with before anything is injected.

That order is the difference between a repair that holds and one that reopens next spring. If yours has sat unchanged for a decade we will tell you to leave it alone.