Leaky Basement

[frontiersteve]

I'm sure you've heard this one before but I'm new here so if you wouldn't mind.

I've got a 90 yr old poured basment in north eastern Indiana, with a real bad water problem. I've considered looking into pouring a new basement but, after reading some of the threads on his site I'm starting to have 2nd thoughts. Another idea I had was to abandan the basement alltoghether, fill it in, and add additional living space to the main floor. I'd like some opinions and comments on this.

If I would do this, how would I make sure that the water wouldn't just keep coming in where the basement was, making it damp/wet under my house. also, another concern would be radon.

Any comments would be appreciated.

[homebild]

Some years ago, I considered buying a foreclosed 40 year old 24x50 ranch home with a full basement. The price was $56,000 firm.

Problem was the full basement had serious water problems, so serious the foundation walls were cracked 4 feet up from the floor all around the basement and the walls were beginning to buckle in.

So I ran some numbers on what it would cost me, as a builder, to fill in the basement to create a 2 foot high crawlspace which would have resolved the basement water and structural issues at the same time.

My cost was $18,000, and based on the other repairs necessary to bring this home into a habitable or sellable condition (about $12000), did not make the deal financially attractive. The estimated resale value after these investments was only $75,000, not even enough to recover my investment.

So I walked away.
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Filling in the basement could be a solution in your case, but it may not be the cheapest option or the most financially feasible.

Other options could be to replace and waterproof a new foundation or just install a water mitigation system that will handle your existing problems.

Best approach may be to get estimates for the various options available then decide.

[frontiersteve]

I appreciate your opinion. I don't know what I'm gonna do yet. I heard a lot of bad things about the mitigation systems but my mother had Interior Channel do her basement and it certainly cured her wet basement problems. It wasn't cheap either though.