New Yorker here (yes, yes, i know). Coming into town next week for a conference at the Renaissance Center. If you had to pick one spot, which joint has the most accurate representation of Detroit pizza?
Hello everyone,
I live in my 1889 brownstone here in Brooklyn and I have had a problem for at least the last 10 or 15 years with water entering my cellar along the back wall during heavy rains. I don't really see anything when the rain is light or very brief -- when the rain is moderate to severe or persistent (all day long), then I see it. It started out as just one point along the wall behind the cellar hatch in the backyard, but now I have water weeping through some of the mortar joints along a specific section of the wall as well as along the side wall just behind the opening of the hatch coming into the cellar.
I've gone over this with my father and he insists that I just have a "low spot" along the back wall or around the opening where my garden hose spigot comes through. He very well may be right, but I'm skeptical that slathering some quick plug hydraulic cement is going to permanently fix the issue. Honestly, I'm just at the point where I don't want to think about water entering my basement again. Not in my lifetime, at least.
I've had a few masonry contractors over to look at it and I even suggested filling cracks on the outside, but pretty much all of them said some variation of the same thing: they can try to re-point the mortar around the stone inside the basement but, really, the only surefire way to prevent leaks is to excavate the outside down to the footer and apply a waterproof membrane.
The problem is, that "surefire" solution is....expensive. The best price I've found on that is $14,000. What would you guys do? Go with the nuclear option? Part of me thinks that these are just masonry contractors looking to profit on a big job that might not be necessary -- but the other part of me just wants to be done with the stress of checking the basement every time I have a heavy rain.