basement paint

Is there a paint designed for basement walls and floors to help stop water from leaking in? Or is it not good to seal the walls?

Reply to
glen
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Sure there is paint designed for basement walls and floors to help stop water from leaking in. The only problem is it does not really work.

If you have water coming in, you first need to get it away from your foundation. That means making sure the ground slopes away from the foundation in all directions for at least ten feet. All downspouts need to be directed away from the foundation and any walks drives or patios also need to slope away from the foundation.

Next you may need to add additional work outside the foundation to seal the foundation and remove water that gets that far. Last is draining the water from around the inside of the foundation to a sump from which it is pumped out.

Reply to
Joseph Meehan

Epoxy is good for a concrete floor. For the walls, there is a rubber-based concrete paint. It is good to seal the walls to keep the basement as dry as possible. Make sure your grading around your home is good for diverting water.

Reply to
Phisherman

I am actually in the process of covering my basement walls with Drylock. I am not doing it for water prevention as much as I am doing it for the look as beige walls in a basement are a lot more attractive than grey block.

If you have water seeping through your walls you have problems that need to be fixed from the outside.

Reply to
Brad

...and, the fact is, if it *did* work, it could potentially cause bigger problems. Imagine the scenario where you have significant water accumulation around your foundation. But, you're happy because your walls are completely sealed and your basement is dry. In effect, though, you have turned your foundation walls into a dam holding back 8 feet of saturated mud (or more). Do you think they're designed to withstand that force? (Hint: No.) As Joseph M. says, it's much more advisable to remove the water from the outside through other passive or mechanical means.

Joe F.

Reply to
rb608

Reply to
glen

You can seal the walls. This gives the wall a much better look than concrete blocks. You may find it look good enough to the point that you will not feel wanting to put a finishing wall over it -- this means you can save a lot of work by not finishing the basement. As a matter of fact, now that I have finished the basement, I find that I am probably better off simply leaving the wall with DryLock paint instead of finishing the basement -- saving time and money.

If you seal the wall, but leave the floor unsealed, any water reaches the outside of the basement water will go further down, and show up on the floor. This will make the water problem much more apparent; then you can take the appropriate action to fix the water problem outside your house (such as fixing the downsprout, ...etc) instead of waiting until the problem showing up in the form of mold on your wall.

What I did in my unfinished side of my basement is to paint the wall in DryLock, and then paint another coat of white paint that is mold-resistent over the DryLock paint. You can stain the top coat to any color you want.

Jay Chan

Reply to
Jay Chan

I actually bought my DryLock in beige and it looks great. If you are looking to do a quick cover job for appearance and not so much for moisture I would buy the grey since you won't really see where you put it on too thin.

Reply to
Brad

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