Four wet basements, one county road, four different reasons.

Every one of them called with the same sentence: water on the slab after a hard rain. The cause was different at every house, and so was the bill. We look in this order, cheapest first, and one of these four never got an invoice.

A worker in a hard hat and high visibility vest climbing a ladder out of a deep shored trench, steel trench boxes braced across the walls, a tracked excavator standing at the far end.

Ninety feet of wall, shored and open to the footing. The last of the four, and the one everybody hopes they do not need.

Rain running off a shingled roof edge and past a downspout on an overcast day, seen from beneath the eave.

Case 01

The downspout

Gower · poured wall · called on a Tuesday night

0$24,000

What we found: Two downspouts ending in splash blocks four feet off a poured wall, on the uphill side of the house. A thousand square feet of roof puts roughly six hundred gallons on the ground in a one inch rain, and most of it was landing where the water was getting in.
What it took: Two lengths of extension pipe and an afternoon. The homeowner bought them himself. We answered the phone, drove out, walked the perimeter with him and left.
What we charged: Nothing. There is no charge to come look at a wet basement, including the ones where the answer turns out not to be us.

Standing water in long shallow puddles across a green back lawn two days after rain, with trees reflected in it.

Case 02

The grade

Plattsburg · block wall · water twice a spring

$2,400

0$24,000

What we found: Flat ground for eighteen feet off the back wall and a low spot that held water two days after a rain. The backfill had settled the way backfill always settles, and the fall had quietly gone the wrong way.
What it took: A day and a half with the skid steer. Six inches of fall re-established over the first ten feet, a shallow swale cut to carry the yard water around the corner, and both downspouts trenched out to daylight at the fence line.
What we charged: $2,400. This is the fix we look at first on every call, and across a year it dries more basements than drain tile does.

An unfinished basement with painted white block walls, steel support posts and a smooth grey concrete floor running to the wall joint.

Case 03

The finished wall

Camden Point · eight feet to the lot line

$9,100

0$24,000

What we found: Water at the floor joint along two walls of a finished basement, and the neighbour's driveway eight feet off the house. Nothing with tracks on it was reaching that wall from the outside.
What it took: Fifty two feet of interior perimeter. Floor saw cut and broken out, tile bedded in washed rock, basin set in the low corner, pump on its own circuit with a check valve and a discharge run out to daylight rather than a hose out a window. Concrete patched back the same week.
What we charged: $9,100. Interior tile does not keep water out of the wall. It catches the water and takes it somewhere, and when the outside of the wall cannot be reached that is the honest repair rather than the second best one.

An excavator bucket set down into a narrow open cut, broken material stacked along both sides of the trench.

Case 04

The footing

Turney · block wall · nine days on site

$21,600

0$24,000

What we found: Water through the joints at two courses, efflorescence three feet up, and a stain line you could read like a gauge. The grade was already right. Somebody had put an interior system in eleven years earlier and the block was still full of water.
What it took: Ninety feet dug to the footing and shored. Wall cleaned and coated, dimple board fastened over it, perforated line bedded in washed rock and daylighted to the road ditch, then backfill compacted in lifts and the yard put back. Nine days, weather permitting, and the weather did not permit.
What we charged: $21,600. It is the most expensive line on this page and it is the only repair that keeps water out of the block instead of catching it once it is already inside.

A crawler dozer with its blade down working a brush line at the edge of a stand of pines, dust hanging in the air behind the tracks.

The other half of the year

Same machines, ordinary dirt.

About half the year is not waterproofing at all. It is pads, driveways, laterals, ponds, brush and hauling, done with the same iron and the same two people. A dirt contractor gets hired off the equipment list and a waterproofer gets hired off the price, so both are here.

Rates, Gower and about forty five minutes out
Work	Runs
Exterior foundation drainDig to footing, clean, coat, dimple board, tile and washed rock	$95 to $140 / ft
Interior drain tileFloor cut, tile, rock, basin, concrete patched back	$62 to $88 / ft
Sump basin and pumpBasin, pump, check valve, discharge run to daylight	$1,250
Grading and drainage correctionFall re-established, swale cut, downspout lines trenched out	$850 to $3,600
Land clearingFence rows, pasture, timber edge, piled and burned or hauled off	$1,400 / acre
Pads, driveways, laterals, trenchingCut and compacted off the survey stakes to the print elevation	By the job
Machine and operatorExcavator, dozer or skid steer, four hour minimum	$165 / hr
Fill dirt, rock or topsoilDelivered inside twenty miles, per tandem load	$285

Owned rather than rented: a thirteen tonne tracked excavator, a mini excavator for tight yards, a D4 dozer, a skid steer with grading and brush attachments, a tandem dump and a tilt trailer. Waterproofing is quoted by the foot after somebody has stood in the basement, because the price depends on what the wall is made of and how far the water has to travel once we catch it.

The outfit

Twenty four years, four counties, two people.

Curtis Bellamy started waterproofing basements in 2002 and bought the first excavator two years later because he was tired of hiring one. The two halves have run together ever since. The machines are owned, the crew is small, and the person who quotes the job is on the job.

Basement water is a franchise business now. Somebody with a national advertising budget and a call centre can be at the house tomorrow, sell an interior system on every wall including the dry ones, and be gone. We live in Gower. The name on the truck is a person's name, and we are going to see you at the co-op.

Curtis Bellamy, Gower

An operator sitting in the cab of a compact excavator with a second worker standing at the edge of the cut holding a shovel, on a clear morning.

If there is water on a slab right now, say that first.

(816) 555-0177

Water sitting on concrete is a clock, so those calls go to the front even when the repair itself has to wait for the ground to dry out. For anything else, leave the address and what the water is doing and the call comes back the same day.

Shop

123 Main St
Gower, MO 64454

A machine shed and a gravel lot, with nothing to look at. Estimates happen at your place, on the ground, with the downspouts and the grade in front of us, and they are free and written down before we leave.

Hours

Monday to Friday7 to 5
SaturdayBy appointment
SundayClosed

Insured. Waterproofing since 2002.

Reach us

(816) 555-0177

dirt@example.com

Towns we cover: Gower, Plattsburg, Camden Point, Dearborn, Edgerton, Trimble, Turney, Lathrop, Platte City, Smithville, Cameron, Easton, Faucett, and the county roads through Buchanan, Clinton, Platte and DeKalb County.