Serving Missoula
Groundwater & Basement Water Intrusion in Missoula, MT
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 basement takes water in June and never in a storm.
That is the melt rather than the rain, and it comes from beneath rather than from outside. The gravel under this valley connects to the rivers, so when they run high in late spring the level under the whole floor comes up with them and a basement dug into it fills from the floor. Exterior grading does nothing about that. Interior drainage and a pump are what address it.
How fast does water move through this ground?
Quickly, which cuts both ways. Gravel this coarse drains a surface puddle almost immediately, and it also carries whatever gets into it a long way in a short time. That is why a spill or a failed line here reaches further than it would in clay, and why a rise in the river shows up under a property some distance from the bank within a day.
The slopes above burned. Does that reach the valley?
It does, and for several years rather than one. Burned ground sheds water instead of absorbing it and carries soil and ash with it, so the creeks off those slopes run higher, dirtier and faster than they did, and they do so on rainfall that would previously have passed unnoticed. Properties on a creek below a burn are worth reassessing rather than assuming the previous pattern holds.
The same questions, in context, on the Missoula mold removal page.