Tips For Basement Leak Repair and Mold Removal

It is such a sinking feeling to discover water in your nicely decorated basement. You spent all you could afford to make a nice finished family room, laundry area and play room, and now there is water damage everywhere.

Where are you going to find the money to redo everything? Will the insurance cover the damage? Who has time for this headache? Basement leak repair isn't something we can put off for sometime in the future. What can be done about prevention in the future?

DIY or hire a contractor

It needs to be faced right now to avoid additional damage and mold and mildew growth. You have two choices—do it yourself or hire a local contractor to do the wet basement repairs.

If the insurance will cover the damage and pay for a contractor to repair everything, that is the way to go. You can get rid of the musty basement smell, fix a foundation crack, get the best waterproofing products and even use high quality floor paint.

Contractors have lots of experience with water damage repair and prevention. The contractor can find where the water came from and take steps to make sure there will be no future leaks. There may be serious underlying causes for the water leak and the contractor can recognize them and give you options for correcting the defects.

Basement leak repair can be a dirty, labor intensive job generating a lot of damp stinky garbage that needs to be hauled away. It is no fun dragging wet, damaged, mildew filled carpet and padding up the stairs and out to the curb.

If you are lucky and the water leak is small and of an easily determined cause like a broken water heater or interior pipe, you may be able to take the insurance settlement and do the repair yourself.

If you choose to do wet basement repair yourself, make sure your get rid of every wet thing at the start.

If floor water damage is small and easy to repair, you may be able to hire the local guy who can vacuum all the water out of the carpet, then applies a solution to prevent the mold from growing.

One such product is called Molderizer Organic Mold and Mildew Cleaner.

Things that are wet and you want to save need to be dried out right away. What can't be saved needs to be taken out to the trash. If you have a lot of ruined belongings, you might want to hire a dumpster.

Find the cause of the water leak

You need to determine if the water is clean, gray or black water. If it is gray or black, steps for sanitizing every will need to be taken. Even the clean water will provide a great place for the mold to grow and should be taken seriously.

If the basement leak is from the outside, you may need to find out about waterproofing your basement walls. Two popular products are:

The Aqua Seal Eco-Flex rubber waterproofing membrane. This is a safe, green product that thousands of families have used with success. For cement block houses, you can use Aqua-Block BB, which is easy to apply and very effective.

You may need to use a basement sump pump to remove standing water for severe cases. Once the water is gone and the basement is dry, you should consider using a special floor paint that can help to get rid of mold and mildew.

Some popular types of floor paint are: The Epoxy Shield Basement Floor Coating Kit, for around $53 per gallon. Also, Rust-Oleum EPOXYShield Basement Gray Floor Coating is quite highly recommended, at about $48 a gallon.