Repairing a small crack in poured basement

[abacus]

I have a small crack in our poured concrete basement. It is seeping water, but it's close to our sump pump and the water leakage is not a problem - yet. However, I am concerned that if I don't get it repaired before winter, water will freeze in it, causing the crack to enlarge.

I have a basement repair contractor coming later this month to give an opinion and estimate, but I'd really like to get educated myself first. My somewhat cynical spouse insists that he will just try to sell us an expensive excavation-type repair job. We can't afford that at this time, nor does it seem necessary since it's not currently a serious problem.

I purchased a tube of quickrete concrete repair to seal the crack, but apparently it needs to be injected into the crack. However the crack is basically just a hairline crack, and I can't do that without enlarging the crack first. To this not-so-handy person, that doesn't seem like a swell idea, especially since that's what I'm trying to avoid.

Any suggestions or advice would be appreciated.

Thanks.

[Art]

New house? Old house? The right fix is to get the water away from the outside basement walls. In the meantime you can try hydraulic cement such as Dam-it. Works for a while even when water coming thru if you can get it into the crack. But fill that crack and water may just find another way in. Like I said the right way is to get water away from outside foundation. By the way, how often does the sump pump run. And is this just a particularly wet year for your area?

[Mark Leininger]

I had several small cracks filled by a company that did a great job. They drill diagonal holes through the crack and then install fittings that look like grease fittings into the hole. They inject water into the fitting until it weeps out along the crack, then inject some kind of water reactive epoxy that follows the water through the crack. He troweled the epoxy stuff smooth against the wall after he was finished. You can see where it was patched, but it's not bad looking. Haven't had a drop since. Charged me $200 to do 3 cracks, total length probably 10 feet or so.

I agree that getting rid of the water source is important, but there will always be some hydraulic pressure against your house when rain conditions are right.

abacus wrote:

[Brad]

...And not alleviating that pressure is what often causes the cracks in the first place.

[m Ransley]

Check and fix outside drainage of gutters , grading, downspouts etc How is it going to freeze, it wont. But you should drill a hole in the sump pit to relieve pressure on the ground and pump out water.

[Art]

I would think that the sump pit has perforated drainage pipe attached to it that goes around the inside perimeter of the basement floor. Or at least it should. If he drills another hole it better be near the top of the pit.

[abacus]

We bought the house new 18 years ago. The sump pump runs fairly frequently when it's rainy. We had to replace it for the first time last summer. This has been a particularly wet year, but IMO the root cause is a change in the neighborhood drainage system a few years ago. I know of 2 or 3 nearby houses that have had to had expensive foundation repairs since then. Used to be no matter how hard it rained, we never got major puddles or overflow in the street. Now we do with even a moderate rain.

Thanks for the help.

[abacus]

Thanks. I'll look into that.