What did you do to your house today?

[Traum]

It is quite a coincidence that you are asking just now. My brother's place has just recently finished the remediation work, and I helped him moved the final bits of furniture back down into the basement this past weekend.

After a LOT of asking around, they found a plumbing company that was willing to look into the work, and it turned out to be a *really* big mess. Their bungalow is ~60 yrs old, but we don't really know whether any renovations have been done to the any of the foundation concrete or drain pipes. As it turned out, however, the old drain pipes were all brittle and cracked, so there was definitely water seepage coming into the basement through that during heavy rain. On top, they found a crack in the foundation (on the outside, I believe) near where the drain pipe was, and they suspect that was likely allowing water to come into the basement as well.

As both a remedial and preventative measure, the plumbing company dug a trench all around my brother's bungalow, replaced the drain pipes, re-applied water sealing all around the foundation concrete, and covered everything up again. It was hugely expensive and took a long time because a lot of the work could only be done during good weather.

Based on what you said in #1, the fix that my brother had to do is likely the same "proper fix" that you mentioned. If your inside seal is working well enough, I would (naively) just leave it at that. Or potentially, if you are concerned, I wonder how viable it is to just dig up that side of the house a bit, and only re-seal the foundation around the vicinity of where the crack is found?

[EvoFire]

How much did it cost to dig and reseal? I didn't get a number, but it said that I can just patch it, dig up that 3 ft where the crack is. Thing is, the crack is 1" on the inside, it might be much bigger on the outside. Though at least it runs straight up and down and not sideways.

[Hondaracer]

Fuck yea what a mess and if your house is so close to the next that it has to be all hand dug that’s $$$$

[underscore]

Finally we're getting it painted, 11 years of staring at butter yellow is enough. It's hard to get an accurate photo of the new colour but we're really liking it so far.

[Liquid_o2]

Is that teal? Bold move.

[Traum]

You DIY-ing this? My goodness... you're a god to me~

[underscore]

Oh hell no, I have zero painting skills. Just doing my wheels was bad enough. We hired pros for this, it's lighter and less blue in person, but definitely a bold colour. We were thinking grey at first but 3 houses up the street did that recently and we wanted something more exciting. Picking a colour was hard cause almost everything is an improvement on the yellow lol.

[snowball]

Originally Posted by underscore

Oh hell no, I have zero painting skills. Just doing my wheels was bad enough. We hired pros for this, it's lighter and less blue in person, but definitely a bold colour. We were thinking grey at first but 3 houses up the street did that recently and we wanted something more exciting. Picking a colour was hard cause almost everything is an improvement on the yellow lol.

What are they doing for prep? Always curious to learn how they keep the paint on after being covered in dirt and soot for so many years. Then I look at my neighbour, whose house is actively shedding and they had it painted in 2021.

[underscore]

They came by a bit before and pressure washed the whole place, I'm not sure what they're doing for the stucco now but I can hear them doing something before they spray. The wood trim was all scuffed up and sanded a bit before they brush it.

[Hondaracer]

I think it will look pretty good, somthing different that isn’t totally crazy lol

Reminds me of my parents Aerostar

[underscore]

It's looking pretty sharp with the trim painted white.

The pic really does look like Aerostar green lol. I'll have to play around and try to get a more accurate looking shot.