123: Can You Waterproof a Basement With a Drain and Some Plastic?

Hello again, everyone, and welcome to today's show. If you're one of the 130 million people that are dealing with Sirs Lyme disease, autoimmune disease, or other conditions that are impacted by mold on a daily basis, and you need to learn how to eliminate that exposure, then you're in the right place. My name is Brian Carr, and you're listening to Mold Finders Radio.

Putting a drain on the inside of your basement is not waterproofing your basement. You're still letting water in. And what happens is if. If you have. And I've seen these where they. They build, like, little, you know, moats that go around the exterior of the basement to catch the water that comes in. That all still creates mold and bacteria at source. So then what they're saying is what, we're going to bring in a dehumidifier, and it's going to keep that humidity level low that's created by that water, and it won't create mold everywhere else. Like, that's really cool. But what about all the water that's sitting in there, right there, and everything that's going to grow in around that area? There are certain surfaces that technically mold cannot grow on. If you're in a lab and it's a clean room and there's nothing else in the room except for that surface, okay. The reality is that we live in the real world, and dust and dirt and particles and things move around, and all of that stuff can grow mold. So just because what they're layering their situation with, let's say it's metal, for example, because metal technically can't grow mold, let's say that that's what it is. Well, that doesn't matter because on top of the metal, you're going to get, you know, have you ever looked at anything, like after a month and see, like, the dirt that builds up stuff, stuff that's on it. So that's all going to happen. This isn't solving the problem. This is.

It's a cheap. It's a cheaper solution for someone to come in and say, hey, we can waterproof your basement. We're going to put a gully in here and then plastic up all the walls. What they're doing is covering everything up. They're not actually fixing the problem. It's a cheaper solution to do it that way. So for their business, it's easier for them to come in and sell a solution like that than it is to have a real conversation about what needs to happen, which is if water is Coming in from the outside, your exterior drainage around your house is a problem. And they probably need to excavate around the outside of the house and put in a true moisture barrier on the exterior of the house before it even gets to your foundation walls. And that's not cheap, and it's a big thing to do. Right. But that's how you stop it from coming in. So now what we're doing is saying, well, we're going to let it come in and just try to, like, redirect it a little bit once it's in. But it can still create problem once it's in there. And I've seen basements that have had this type of thing set up in there where we go in, and there's still a bunch of problems everywhere. And so I'm. I'm leery of it because, I mean, I've seen it not work. Right. It's also not cheap to do this. It's cheaper than digging out around your house. But it's not cheap to do this too. Right. You're probably looking like 10 grand or something or whatever to do something like this. Oh, I mean, that's not a cheap thing. Right? So now. Now you look back and say, I'm in. I'm putting money and I'm investing money into something that I actually know is not going to work in the long term. So is that something I want to put the money into? Right. And it's cheaper, obviously, than doing some of the other things. But if there is a basement drainage problem we have, it's. It's no different than. Than getting mold out of a wall as a source as opposed to, like, fogging the room. Right. Source of the problem still exists, is going to continue to come back. Um, then the second piece on that is covering the walls with plastic. So now you, like, think of this. Think of what we're talking about. We're letting water come in, then we're going to cover all the walls with plastic. Mold is going to grow back there. It's going to grow back there. The reality is you should never need plastic or sealant paints or encapsulate paints or anything on your walls in your basement, because water shouldn't be coming in, so you shouldn't actually ever need it. So the only reason someone's going to say, hey, we're going to do this is because they're not actually fixing the water problem that's coming in in the first place. So realistically, you shouldn't ever need any of that stuff. If the waterproofing is done properly on the house. So I mean, that's just like theory on how it works. I mean, that theory, but also seeing it. So, like, that's how it all works now. So what I would sort of have you think about is, I don't know if you've gone down the sort of exercise of like, well, what if we did sell? Like, what's our house worth? Where would we. What would that look like? What's the monetary impact of that? But I would, I would, you know, suggest to kind of like go down that road a little bit and just kind of play it out and see what's it like if I stay and remediate things, what's kind of the cost I'm looking at. What's the cost look like if, like, maybe I would sell and go do something else and then know that this $15,000 that you're putting in here, you know, in a few years, you're probably going to have a problem again. So that's part of the math, right? So, like, I would say personally, like, if this was me and it was my basement, that wouldn't even be an option for me. Why would I ever even consider that as an option? Like, that's how I view looking at what that solution is for a basement. So when you're thinking of these comparisons, I would encourage you to, like, not even really consider that as like, part of the math of the option. Like, well, if we did it this way, then maybe the math works. I would, personally, for me, I would take that off the table because it just isn't going to work in any extended way, you know, and then really look at it big picture holistically, and then try to decide, like, what. What move makes the most sense.

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