Basement Waterproofing in Scottdale, PA

KAE Solutions serves homeowners in Scottdale, PA, the Westmoreland County borough between Connellsville and Mount Pleasant, from our base in Hopwood. We keep water out of basements with interior and exterior waterproofing, French drains and sump pumps, and we repair the cracked walls, damp crawl spaces and water damage it leaves behind. Inspections and estimates are free: call (724) 912-8151.

Basement Waterproofing in Scottdale, PA

Scottdale's basements have a simpler story than most of the towns around it. On PA DEP's Mine Subsidence Insurance risk map, none of the borough (0%) lies in the "Underground Mining Area" layer, 0.7% is in "Coal Exists - Possibly Mined" and 99.3% is in neither. At the town's Census center point the map says "No mining area - Insurance is not needed". On the same map about 86.1% of Mount Pleasant is undermined, and about 26.7% of Connellsville.

So in Scottdale, a wet basement or a cracked wall is a question of water, soil and the age of the house, not old coal workings. That makes the cause easier to pin down, and it means the fix is about giving the water somewhere else to go.

Seal it before you feel it. The early signs are easy to live with for years: a line of white powder along the block, a musty smell in the laundry corner, a damp floor after a storm, a sump pump that runs more each spring. By the time water stands on the floor, the walls have usually been taking it on for a long while. Our basement waterproofing page covers the full range of fixes.

Scottdale Homes Built Before 1950

Scottdale is a borough of about 4,363 people, and like Uniontown and Connellsville, more than half of its homes were built before 1950. The Census puts the median home at 1946: 41.3% were built before 1940, 54.8% before 1950 and 87.3% before 1980. About 69.2% are single-family detached houses, and 64.5% are owner-occupied.

With that many prewar houses, a lot of Scottdale basements have stone or brick walls. Stone walls were laid with mortar between irregular stones, and ground water slowly washes the mortar out of the joints until the wall leaks at dozens of points instead of one. Brick soaks up water, and when that water freezes, the face of the brick can flake away. Neither wall can be made watertight with a coat of paint on the inside, because the water is coming from the soil behind it. These basements were built to hold a furnace and a coal bin, not a family room.

If you plan to finish an old basement, deal with the water first. Framing, drywall and carpet over a damp stone wall trap the moisture, and the first sign of trouble is often a musty smell or mold behind the new wall. A drain at the base of the walls, carried to a sump pump, collects what comes through the stone and keeps the floor dry before anything is built over it.

Rain and Freeze-Thaw Around Scottdale

The nearest full NOAA station to Scottdale is Connellsville 2 SSW, 7.4 miles away. Its 1991-2020 normals give 46.86 inches of precipitation a year, against 39.61 at Pittsburgh's airport. June, July and August bring 14.1 inches, March through May 12.54, and the station counts 175.3 days a year with at least 0.01 inch, close to one day in two. An average year adds 24.4 inches of snow.

The cold is the other half. The station records 116.2 days a year with a low at or below 32°F, but only 23.4 that stay at or below freezing, so on about 92.8 days the ground and the walls freeze and then climb back above 32°F. Water that has soaked into a mortar joint or a hairline crack freezes overnight, expands and opens the joint a little more. Over enough winters, that is how a damp spot turns into a running leak.

Drains and Sump Pumps: What Pennsylvania's Code Asks

Pennsylvania's building code requires that "Drains shall be provided around concrete or masonry foundations that retain earth and enclose habitable or usable spaces located below grade." A house built before 1950 may never have had a working drain at the footing, and an old clay tile drain may have silted shut. On an existing basement, a drain can go in from either side.

Interior French drains

We open a trench in the floor along the walls, lay perforated pipe in clean stone at the footing and slope it to a sump pit. The pump lifts the water out through a discharge line that carries it away from the house. Water that comes through the walls and up the cold joint goes into the drain instead of across the floor. For stone and block basements this is often the practical choice, and the work happens inside, in any season.

Exterior French drains and waterproofing

Outside, we dig down along the foundation, lay a drain at the footing and waterproof the wall itself before backfilling. This stops water before it reaches the wall, which helps a wall that is breaking down from being soaked, but it means digging up whatever is next to the house. Our French drains and sump pumps pages go into each in more detail.

Gutter Lines, Yard Water and Soil in Scottdale

Roof water is the easiest water to keep away from a basement. A downspout that ends at the foundation drops the rain from a whole section of roof at the base of the wall. We run gutter lines, often underground, and downspout extensions that carry it well away, and we deal with standing water in the yard; see drainage systems.

The soil works against old walls too. In the NRCS soil survey for Westmoreland County, 38.9% of soil acres are "moderately well drained", NRCS's class for soils that drain slowly during some periods of the year, and shrink-swell limits dwellings with basements on 19.9%. Clay that swells when wet and shrinks when dry pushes and pulls at a foundation wall every year. Protect your home from the ground up: if part of the house sits over a crawl space, the same ground moisture rises into it, and a vapor barrier or full encapsulation keeps it out of the floor framing.

KAE Solutions is fully licensed and insured, BBB Accredited with an A rating, and a Pennsylvania registered home improvement contractor, PA203391. Call (724) 912-8151 for a free inspection of your Scottdale basement.

Is Your Scottdale Basement Taking On Water?

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