Serving St. Louis
Groundwater & Basement Water Intrusion in St. Louis, MO
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
Water came up through the floor drain, not in at a wall. What is that?
The public sewer surcharged. St. Louis still runs combined lines in much of the older city, so a May burst that loads the mains returns through the lowest fixture. That water is Category 3 and carries sewage, so the job is extraction, disinfection, and often removal of porous finish, not a new exterior drain. A backflow preventer stops this reverse. It does nothing about groundwater at the brick.
The house is from the 1920s. Can this basement ever stay dry?
Managed, yes; sealed like a tank, no. Brick of that period was built to carry the house, not to keep May groundwater out, and the damp-proofing taken for granted now did not exist. Keep roof water off the wall, keep the perimeter clear, and treat a floor-drain event as sewer, not as seepage. A contractor can dry a wet finish after an event; the brick will still take a little moisture every spring.
There is no stain on the street side, but one basement wall is wet. Could that be the limestone?
It can. Parts of the city sit on solution-prone limestone, and water moves through those voids in paths that have nothing to do with the grade you can see. A wet wall with a dry yard and a quiet floor drain is often that seepage, not a roof or a sewer. Dye and a moisture map beat guessing. Exterior drainage still helps, but the source may be in the rock, not the downspout.
The same questions, in context, on the St. Louis mold removal page.