We have had periodic leaking in our basement over the years, but New Years Eve(2022), coming into 2023 was horrendous. I spent over a half a day with my wet/dry vac sucking up tons of water that was coming in. I have dug out around our foundation in previous years and did as much leak proofing as I could, and it would seem to work for a while, but the torrential rain of 2022 was over the top. My wife and I started searching for waterproofing companies back last summer, and must have gone through almost 20 companies that list that they do that type of work, only for the vast majority of them do not. We had less about 3 or 4 that gave us quotes, SMI being one of them. Those quotes ranged from somewhat reasonable to outrageous. I met with all of the estimators who came out and discussed what I needed and wanted. I built a wooden deck over one side of the house where the work needed to be done. I strategically had to cut seven of the 2x6's for them to have access to that side, where it needed to be dug out and down about four feet. I met with Marcos, got his quote, which my wife was pleased with, especially since another quote from an Engineer was very thorough, but was exactly twice of what we got from SMI, that ended up being the same kind of work. I knew it was going to be extensive. They were set to begin on 11/27/23, but could not come out until the following day due to several of their workers being sick. They showed up the next day, bright and early. The back area of the house had to be dug down about six feet by to two feet to get to the footer, and the side only about four feet. There was about 3+ yards of clay soil that had to come out. They got down to the footer, went below it, put in drain rock, put a material of sheeting onto the wall that the back was melted to the wall and below the footing. This material looked like it had bubble wrap on the face with a plastic type material for water proofing. A trench was dug along side the house, under the retaining wall, under an area next to the house where our hot tub is located, and they had to saw the concrete patio to open up a trench to continue out past our yard, drill a hole in the main retaining wall out to the street. A distance of roughly forty feet or so. A pipe was put in this trench and on out thru the hole in the wall where the water would be pushed out by a sump pump, out to a shrubbery area next to the side walk. Once all of this was done, the trench hole was patched with concrete, and everything else was put back into place. Most of the dirt was put back into the hole in the back, but the rest was hauled off. There is a void that was left open under the deck to access the sump pump. I put some concrete blocks in the hole up against the looser dirt to shore it up. With the recent rains, I have heard the water chug out of the pipe in brief spurts, but nothing constant. I guess this work is paying off, as it really has not rain hard enough and long enough for the rain we got that caused our last leaking issue. We are at the bottom of a fairly steep hill, so one the ground is really saturated, it comes down hard and heavy. No more heavy clay up against the house, along with the drain rock and the waterproofing material should have done the trick. Really no way to tell until we get an extensive downpour, but so far so good. We are very pleased with the work that was done. Hopefully I don't have to come back with a follow up, unless it is a good one. It took a total of five days to complete the work. Folks, If you need this type of work done, PLEASE do not waste your time calling anyone else but SMI. I know there are leaky basements all over the place, and finding someone to do it is nightmarish. Just get in touch with them, as they do respond and do great work. It is okay to get other quotes, to have a comparison, but you are likely to end up choosing
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