Want a Dry Basement? Don't Forget About Your Basement Walls!
You remove all of the water that flooded your basement and make sure your floor is clean and you are done, correct? False! If you have a wet basement the floor is not your only concern. Your basement walls are key in keeping your basement dry.
Your basement walls allow water vapor to pass through them. Block walls don’t only allow water vapor through, cold and damp outside air passes through them too thanks to their hollow core. Stone walls allow air, water and water vapor through as well.
When looking at your basement walls do you see damp, stained, chalky, flakey and ugly walls? Does that sight make you happy? Probably not, so what can you do? There are a few options on the market, but not all of them are good options. These include coatings, paneling, and vapor barriers.
Coating is not a good option, simply because they don’t last very long. It doesn’t make sense to put a coating over a wall that already let water vapor and water through. It would cause the coating to peel and flake off.
-
“ZenWall” paneling is a great option if you are looking for a finished look without actually fully finishing your basement.
-
“BrightWall” panels are best if you want to leave your basement unfinished.
“ZenWall” is a 1.4” thick encapsulated fiberglass core with reflective foil vapor on the back side and a decorative vinyl finish on the front side. It looks as good as a basement can without fully finishing it and only for a fraction of the price.
“BrightWall” is sort of like a plastic version of Formica. It is a semi-rigid white plastic panel that get installed on your basement walls with drilled in white fasteners. While it does doesn’t look as nice as “ZenWall” it still dresses up your unfinished basement for about 30% less.
Don’t ignore the walls in a wet basement. If you want a dry basement it is important to fix all of the factors involved. Luckily there are several solutions to this problem matching a variety of budgets.