The contracts have been signed and after an extremely long time I can happily say the work is finally going to happen. Here’s what went down. After being frustrated by not being able to find somebody to do the work or at least do the work in a way that I thought would be lasting, I made one last attempt. I posted a very detailed description of my problems complete with pictures on a forum with many knowledgeable people. I didn’t know what to expect but I hoped that it would be something that I hadn’t thought of. It was. I was basically told 2 solutions. 1 solution was to use a product that was a liquid but when it dried it turned into bendable concrete. Even though this sounded good only 1 guy really suggested it but he also made it seem like it involved a lot of hard preparation. The resounding conclusion was to do “flashing” all the way around the house. Everybody seemed to agree that this was the way to go. Previous to this I had no clue what flashing was but I did some searches and read up on it. Basically it is when you cut a groove and insert a piece of sheet metal in it. You angle the sheet metal so it covers up the vulnerable point. This is most commonly seen around chimneys. So this IS my solution and it makes sense. They are going to cut a groove in between the brick all the way around the house and insert the sheet metal into it. The sheet metal will be bent down to cover up the cracks and when the rain hits it, it will just pour down the sheet metal surface to the ground. The groove will then be filled in with caulking. This may not look the best, to have a metal ring around the house, but I know it is THE best solution for the job. Sometimes you have to push aesthetics to the back so that the important things can be taken care of. After all is said and done my plan is to plant some bushes around the house and in a few years they will grow tall enough to cover the flashing.
After I got the news of what to do the next thing to do was to find somebody that would actually perform the job. I was told that I should try some waterproofing companies. I for one have always thought that these companies were scams but I’ve now learned otherwise. If they are good companies they will do foundation work, fixing cracked and bowing walls, installing french drains, and even leveling houses that are sinking. You obviously have to know your stuff to be able to do this otherwise you are just a company painting drylok in a basement. I kind of assumed that was what all of these companies did. I looked in the phonebook for waterproofers and there were over 8 pages of companies. The last thing that I wanted to start doing was basically the same process of calling, explaining, scheduling, meeting, explaining again and waiting for a price – for 8 pages of companies. I decided to find any company that had a website and email them a link to my forum post and see what they thought and if they could perform the task. I email 11 companies and got 3 responses. This seems like an accurate ratio. 1 company said to call his friend, he’s not sure if he’s licensed but he does good work and this job lo simple enough, but he would never recommend somebody that isn’t licensed!?!? I won’t even get into that one so needless to say I never called him. Then I received responses from 2 other companies. One came to the house and agreed to flashing being the best solution but said he doesn’t do that kind of work.. I actually talked to this guy for a while and even though he wouldn’t do the job he was very knowledgeable and helped me out a lot. The other guy who responded, read the post over and discussed it with some of his colleagues and then came to the house for a closer look. He agreed that flashing was the right thing to do as well. We discussed it and also talked about redoing all the concrete work around the house as well. They are going to wrap the wire mesh around the house and then reconcrete it. After that is done they will install the flashing. They were supposed to come today but it’s raining so maybe tomoroow or maybe this week depending on the weather.
Till soon…
