Hydrostatic Pressure: What Is It?

It’s never fun to find a mystery puddle, no matter where it is. At least upstairs, you might be able to blame a pet or a toddler; when it’s in your basement, your options are basically water leak or ghost. There’s actually a very simple explanation for where these puddles come from though. 

The culprit is hydrostatic pressure, which is a fancy way of saying water pressure. When soil is oversaturated, like in the case of heavy spring rains or melting snow, the excess water will try to move to a lower pressure area. The thing about water is that it’s incredibly strong - stronger than concrete even - so it sees no problem just flowing through your basement floor. You’re left with a mystery puddle that has no obvious origin. 

This is a problem for a few reasons. One, water doesn’t need to come from a specific place in order to cause problems. And two, as water travels through concrete it finds and expands normal microscopic cracks, widening them and making it easier for future water to follow the same path. Soon you have visible cracks in the floor and more water than you can deal with. 

The way to deal with water in the middle of the floor is the same way you deal with it everywhere else - a waterproofing system. We talk about our perimeter system a lot, which sounds limiting, but we can add feed line that is installed across the middle of the basement to ensure all incoming water makes it to the WaterGuard system and out through the sump pump.  

Waterproofing with us is a permanent solution that gets rid of all incoming water - not most of it, not all of it around the edges, but all of it. Even the mystery puddles. Call today to put an end to unexpected water and protect your basement for good.