We had 3 straight days of rain last week and now i have cracks i swear werent there before. Theres one running diagonal from the corner of my basement window down to the floor, and another smaller one along the bottom of the wall on the same side. The diagonal one is maybe 1/8 inch wide and i can see a tiny bit of moisture coming through. I tried wiping it and it keeps coming back. Is this an emergency?? My house is 22 years old and we never had any cracks before. Im panicking a little bit because we just refinanced. Do i need to call someone asap or can this wait?
7 Comments
Take a breath. New cracks after heavy rain doesnt necessarily mean structural failure. What probably happened is the soil around your foundation got super saturated and expanded, putting lateral pressure on the walls. The diagonal from the window corner is a stress point where the wall is weakest. Moisture seeping through is annoying but its more of a waterproofing issue than a structural collapse situation.
ok that helps a little. should i try to seal it myself or is that gonna make things worse?
dont seal it from inside while its still wet, the water needs somewhere to go. let it dry out completely first. in the meantime check your gutters and downspouts on that side of the house. if theyre dumping water right at the foundation thats probably your main problem. downspout extensions are like $12 at home depot and could solve half this issue
22 year old house getting its first cracks after heavy rain is honestly pretty normal lifecycle stuff. Concrete doesnt last forever and hydrostatic pressure from saturated soil is one of the main causes of new cracking. Get an engineer to look at it when things dry out but this isnt a middle of the night emergency. Take photos and measure the width now so you have a baseline.
had almost the exact same thing happen to us last spring. diagonal crack from basement window after a week of storms. turned out our grading had settled over the years and water was pooling against that wall. we paid about $800 to regrade that side of the yard and added longer downspout extensions. crack hasnt gotten any bigger since. still need to seal it but at least the cause is handled
Engineer here. A 1/8 inch diagonal crack from a window corner with moisture intrusion after heavy rain is something i'd want to evaluate but its not a drop everything emergency. The window opening creates a natural weak point and rain loading on the soil can definitely cause new cracking in older concrete. What would concern me more is if you see the crack growing wider over the next few weeks even after it dries out. Mark the ends with a sharpie and note the date. If it moves past your marks thats when you call someone sooner rather than later.
just want to say dont stress about the refinance. we had similar cracks show up 6 months after we refinanced and i was terrified the bank would somehow care. they dont. the refinance is done, the appraisal is done, nobody is coming back to check your basement walls lol. focus on the actual crack and not the financial anxiety. also seconding what everyone said about the downspouts, ours were dumping water right at the foundation for years before we realized and $20 in extensions basically solved our moisture problem overnight