The four jobs this usually comes down to
Almost every wet basement in this valley resolves into one of four pieces of work, or two of them together. Here is what each is for and where the local rules bite.
There is a lot of product language in this trade. Stripped of it, there are four things a contractor can actually do to a wet basement, and the right one depends on where the water is entering and what the wall is doing.
A useful way to narrow it before anybody visits: go down during a long wet spell and look at where the floor meets the wall. Water arriving at that joint, or up through the floor drain, or through a crack in the slab, is coming from underneath, and that is a drainage and pump question. Water running down the inside face of a wall from higher up, or a wall that is bowing, leaning or cracking in a stair step pattern through the block joints, is a different problem and a more serious one.
Cost ranges for all four are on the costs page, kept separate from this one because the numbers come from trade sources rather than from anything local.
Whichever of these you end up buying, the Michigan licence question is the same, and it is worth two minutes: the state issues the maintenance and alteration licence in named crafts, and both "waterproofing a basement" and "excavation" are on that list. How to check it takes about as long as reading this paragraph.
The town pages cover the part that changes by municipality, which is mostly about sewers, permits and who inspects the work.
- Exterior excavation Digging the wall down to the footing and sealing it from outside.
- Crack repair Injection for a leaking poured wall, and how to spot the cracks that mean more.
- Interior drain tile A channel around the inside footing, feeding a pit and a pump.
- Sump pumps The pump, the backup, and the discharge rule that changes by city.