Seal Foundation Cracks Before Autumn Sets In

There is a predictable sequence to how a small foundation crack becomes an expensive one in this province, and it runs on the calendar.

September to November. Atlantic rain arrives, often in large single events. The ground saturates and stays saturated, because the growing season is over and evaporation has dropped off. Water sits against the foundation for days at a time and works into every opening.

December to March. That water freezes. Ice occupies about nine percent more volume than the water it came from, and it has nowhere to expand except outward into the concrete. Then it thaws, more water works in, and it freezes again. An Atlantic winter delivers dozens of these cycles.

April. Snowpack melts faster than frozen ground can absorb, the water table comes up, and the crack that was a dry hairline in September is now a leak.

Interrupting that sequence in autumn is the cheapest intervention available.

Cracks are not only about water

A gap through your foundation is also a door.

Mice need an opening about the width of a pencil. Autumn is precisely when they start looking for somewhere warm, and a foundation crack, an unsealed pipe penetration, or a gap around a basement window is exactly what they are looking for. Sealing the foundation properly closes both problems at once.

The same is true of soil gas. In parts of Nova Scotia with elevated radon, cracks and unsealed penetrations in the foundation and slab are a primary entry route.

A twenty-minute autumn walk-around

Outside:

• Follow each downspout to where it discharges. Under a metre from the wall is a problem worth fixing this weekend.
• Clear gutters. A blocked gutter overflows at the wall, which is the worst possible place.
• Look at the grade. Ground should fall away from the foundation, roughly 15 cm over the first 2 m.
• Check window wells. Are they full of leaves? Does the well sit below the surrounding soil? Both mean it will fill with water. See window wells.
• Walk the foundation and look for cracks, spalling concrete, and failing parging.

Inside:

• Look along the joint where the floor meets the wall for staining or a residue line.
• Check for efflorescence, chalky white mineral deposit, which means water is moving through the concrete whether or not you have seen a puddle.
• Test the sump pump with a bucket of water. Confirm the discharge actually leaves the house.
• Note anything that smells musty. That is usually humidity from an open sump or a crawl space, not the walls.

What to act on now rather than in spring

Anything actively admitting water. Anything you can see daylight through. Any crack wider than about 6 mm, or one where one face sits proud of the other: see concrete stitching for why those are different.

And any sump pump older than about eight years, or of unknown age. Replacing it in October on a scheduled visit costs a fraction of replacing it during a November storm with water on the floor.

The cost curve

The repair itself does not get much more expensive as a crack widens. What gets expensive is what the water reaches: finished walls, flooring, furniture, stored belongings, and the mould remediation that follows.

That is the actual argument for autumn. Not that the work is cheaper, but that it happens before the damage does.

Book a free assessment while there is still room in the schedule.