Serving Gloucester
Groundwater & Basement Water Intrusion in Gloucester, MA
Basement seepage, failed sumps, and hydrostatic pressure against the foundation are extracted and dried, and the path from the ground is identified so the loss does not repeat. Groundwater and basement seepage are extracted and dried only after the path from the soil is identified — a wall, a slab, a drain, or a failed sump. Drying the interior without stopping that path returns the same water to the same floor.
Frequently asked questions
The ground is solid rock. Should that not mean dry?
It means the opposite more often than not. Rock takes no water at all, so everything that falls has to move through whatever thin soil sits on top of it or across the surface. A site on ledge has almost no storage, which is why water arrives fast and appears against walls that seem to be well above any water table.
What makes a nor'easter different from a summer storm?
Duration and wind direction. A summer cell drops a lot quickly and moves on, leaving the ground a day to recover. A nor'easter delivers moderate rain for a day or two while pushing the sea onshore across several tide cycles, so the ground never drains and the outfalls stay drowned. The totals can look similar and the outcomes are not.
The cellar is only a few feet deep.
That is the ledge, and it is why cellars here are shallow. A shallow cellar is not automatically drier, because on this ground the water is moving laterally along the rock rather than rising from below. It reaches a shallow wall as readily as a deep one, so depth is not a useful guide to risk here.
This FAQ belongs to the Gloucester page; it is repeated here.