Adam, the Crackdaddy, and the Crackman have been fixing the basement water problems of other people for many, many years. In this episode, Adam recounts a story where he turned himself into a customer.
Narrator: It’s time once again for the “Crack Man Podcast” hosted by A1 Foundation Crack Repair. I’m Darren Kincaid here with the Crack Daddy himself, Adam Tracy. Adam and The Crack Man Rich have over 30 years’ experience in the construction industry. Rich as over 25 years as the president and founder of A1 Foundation Crack Repair. This podcast provides expert basement waterproofing, concrete repair, and preventative maintenance tips for homeowners and businesses. A1 Foundation’s valuable insight will help avert a disastrous flood within the basement, health problems associated with water infiltration, and protect your biggest investment….your home. The topic of today’s podcast: The Crack Daddy had water in his basement...What?
Narrator: So, Adam, you and the Crackman have been fixing basement water problems of other people for many, many years. Did you really turn yourself into a customer?
Adam: I unfortunately did, and it’s a story we hear a lot. I’ve lived in this house for years and never had water. All of a sudden, I’m getting water and most people don’t know what to do. Sure enough that was the same story that I got to experience myself, except I did know what to do. I’ll kind of go into the story a little bit here.
I’ve lived in my house for the better part of 10 years now, never had a drop of water in there, it’s been a very dry basement, spent all the preventative stuff that we could do in there and it’s been great. Well, it was put to the test this July with the amount of rain that we’ve had. We’ve had a historic amount of rain here in New England, and specifically in the Metro Boston area. It has been a historic month. I think this is the most rainfall and most consistent days of rain that we’ve had for any July on record, so many basements are feeling the pinch of this issue.
So, what happened is, we had one of those two to three inch rain storms like we’ve been having consistently day after day. What we did is, I was downstairs in my basement, getting my kids’ stuff out to the door. I picked up what I thought was a little pile of clothes, of course, kids leave clothes everywhere, and I picked it up and I said, Oh, they were wet. And of course, I’m like, Oh, that’s interesting, they shouldn’t be wet on the floor. So then I felt the ground, and I have a little vinyl tile down by the entryway and I was like, Hmm, it’s a little wet. Did somebody spill some water? Checked in. No, nobody spilled water and sure enough, we had some water on the floor.
So, I had to do the traditional investigation of “Where did it come from.” I was able to hunt down the source, it wasn’t coming from the wall, there wasn’t any crack in the wall, it wasn’t coming in there, it was actually coming up from the floor. What had happened was, is that with all of this rain that we’ve had, there was so much water pressure under the house that there was an old saw cut when they laid in a sewer line after the house was constructed. Probably built two to three years after the house was built, it was an old saw cut there, and the water pressure was so intense that it actually buckled the concrete and heaved it in the space where they put the old saw cut. It was probably about a quarter of an inch. It popped all the tiles and all the water was able to find its way in through there.
So, it was a little bit of medicine that I get to experience as a lot of our customers do. We put a sump pump in there. We’re able to relieve the pressure off the floor, so the sump pump was able to take that water pressure down so that water no longer comes up from underneath and pushes its way through there. I was able to do a little bit of concrete work to help flatten that down so that I can put a tile back down. And it was just a sobering experience to be living the life of some of our customers who are just befuddled that they have water coming in their basement and they’ve never had it before.
Narrator: Well, got a little of your own medicine, huh? Great story, Adam. Thanks for sharing how even the Crack Daddy is subject to the whims of nature.
Narrator: If you have a basement water problem and think you need a professional, or, if you’d like more information on foundation crack repair and basement waterproofing topics, please visit A1FoundationCrackRepair.com or call Rich at (866) 929-3171. Or you can email Rich at info@a1foundationcrackrepair.com. Thanks for listening and keep that basement dry.