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The stone foundation under a Hamilton century home has done its job for a hundred years — and it was never waterproofed. We repoint it, seal it from outside, and make the basement usable.(416) 846-3797Or send the form and we'll call you back.
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Westdale, Kirkendall, Durand and old Dundas sit on rubble stone or early block, laid in lime mortar that a century of freeze-thaw has washed out of the joints. Water doesn't come through a crack in these walls; it comes through the wall, along whole sections, every spring and after every heavy rain — and the grading on a 1920 lot has long since settled toward the house. The Mountain's post-war houses are poured concrete or block, with the usual shrinkage cracks at window corners and cold joints. Stoney Creek and Ancaster subdivisions are modern poured walls where a vertical crack at a window or under a beam pocket is the typical spring leak. The clay through most of the city holds water against all of them.
We inspect from inside and outside — the wall, the mortar, the grading, the downspouts, and where the lot sends its water. A single stable crack in a poured wall is injected from inside with a flexible resin that fills it to full depth; no digging, a few hours. A stone or block wall, or a poured wall leaking in several places, gets the fix that holds: excavate the section, clean the wall, repoint the joints on stone, apply membrane and drainage board, and put the soil back with the grade falling away from the house. Downspouts get extended so the roof's water isn't delivered to the wall. We recommend the smaller repair whenever it will actually work.
Have it looked at when the basement smells musty after rain, when there's a damp line along the bottom of a stone wall, when white efflorescence shows on the block or concrete, when a crack has opened that you can fit a coin into, or when the floor is wet in the same corner every spring. On a stone foundation, damp that's been "just how the basement is" for years is water eroding the mortar a little more each season.
Yes. The water is coming through the joints and the grading is bringing it there. Repointing from outside, membrane and drainage, and regrading stops it — and the wall, which has been fine structurally for a century, keeps doing its job.
Usually just the section that's letting water in, once we've confirmed that's where it's coming from. If the whole wall is failing we'll tell you, but most Hamilton jobs are a section, not the perimeter.
On a century home, sometimes the chimney. Water that gets in at a failed crown or flashing runs down inside the wall and appears at the foundation. We look at both before deciding which to fix — it's why we do both.
See all our roofing services in Hamilton or read more about Foundation Repairs.
Tell us what's happening and the owner will come out for a free itemized quote.
