Serving La Crosse
Groundwater & Basement Water Intrusion in La Crosse, WI
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 house is well back from the river and the basement filled.
Terrace sand conducts the river's level sideways very efficiently, so a rise in the channel becomes a rise underfoot a long way inland. Nothing overtops anything and nothing runs across the surface; the floor simply becomes the lowest point in a body of water that now includes the neighborhood. Interior drainage and a pump address it; exterior grading does not.
The water comes off the bluff rather than up from the ground.
Both happen here and they need different work. Bluff runoff arrives as surface flow down a coulee or across the face and is dealt with by interception above the building. River-driven groundwater arrives through the floor and is dealt with by a pit and a pump. Establishing which one a particular property has, by noting when the water appears, is what decides where the money goes.
The coulee behind the property is small and it moved a great deal of material.
Coulees are short and steep, so everything falling on the hillside above reaches them within minutes and arrives with real energy. They carry soil as well as water, so the aftermath is as much a matter of what was deposited as what was flooded. Measures that work are about where the runoff enters the coulee rather than about the channel itself.
The La Crosse overview carries this FAQ with the city research.