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Home's basement water issues may already have been solved

Q. I read your column regularly in the Daily Herald newspaper and have found it to be very helpful.

Our house is lower than the next two houses on our street. The landscaping between these houses channels their water in the direction of my house.

Over the years, and rain upon rain, we have experienced seepage primarily on the floor of our north basement wall and commonly on the floor of our west basement wall. I have done many things to address this problem:

• Replaced window well covers.

• Installed downspout extenders putting the water 15 feet away from the house.

• Laid down a total of 18 cubic yards of dirt on the west and north sides of the house to remedy the negative grade toward the house.

• Cleared out the window well drain top "filter."

My wife and I are tired of the seepage. A month ago, I replaced the two window wells on the north and west walls and sealed them against the house. I covered them with clear window well covers.

When the north window well was replaced, the installers told me the drainpipe was cracked 18 inches down. They also said that because the window well drain hole was deeper than the window well, dirt and pea gravel had washed into the window well drain. Instead of having them fix the broken pipe, I thought it would be best to have a plumber out to let me know the extent of the problem.

The plumber scoped the drains with a camera and found that the drain was plugged. Also, the window well on the south side was plugged under the basement floor in the laundry room. He used a GPS locator to detect where his camera was in the pipe.

I am told of something called a water jet that can clear pipes. If the water jet works, it would seem most likely to work from the sump pump pit back up into the drainpipes where the content would naturally drain back into the pit. Would a water jet damage the pipes?

The window well installers said they could dig down to the foundation and either cut the pipe and clear out the remainder, or clear out the pipe altogether. Ideally, I'd like to have the south drain cleared as well, but that could possibly involve busting up the basement laundry room floor to replace the clogged portion of the pipe.

Do you have any thoughts, questions, ideas?

A. You have raised the negative grade, extended the downspouts, replaced the window wells and covered them, and you still have leakage?

Something does not add up to a surface water problem around your house. If previous leakage occurred through the window wells, it is most likely because of negative grading next to them, since you had covers over them. Your grade corrections should have taken care of this problem.

Since the leakage occurs during long periods of rain, it may be that the drainage from your neighbors, which may include their roof water, is not only percolating into the soil, but also reaching and running down your foundation. The latter should have been cured with your grade corrections.

It is also possible that there is a spring close to your foundation that swells in these lengthy periods of rain.

In either of these scenarios, repairing the window wells' drainpipes would not solve the problem. No water should enter the drywells with proper grading and effective covers. So you need to ask yourself if it is worth the expense of getting the drainpipes cleared up or replaced before making sure they are responsible for the leakage.

I suggest you be patient, try to determine if either of the possibilities I mentioned above is the culprit, and if it is, how best to deal with it. The difficulty will be to ascertain which of the two it is, and that's a hard one to figure out.

If you can determine for sure the problem is coming from the neighbors, building a curtain drain between your uphill neighbors and your house to catch the water is one way to deal with it. But it would not help if the leakage is caused by a swelling spring.

The better way to deal with the leakage - if it still occurs - is to install a drainage system inside the basement, leading to a sump pump. This would cover both possibilities - a spring and runoff from the neighbors.

This can be done by installing a drainage system around the perimeter of the basement below the slab, or a surface system at the joint of the slab and the foundation walls.

Please write again if you need more information on these drainage systems.

Q. How do you clean a sandstone top that sits atop a brick wall? Thank you for all previous information you have given me; it has been very helpful.

A. There are different types of sandstone, and the cleaning recommendations vary depending on its type.

If it is a calcareous sandstone, it should be cleaned by washing it with an alkaline cleaner. But if it is one of the other sandstones, it should be washed with a hydrofluoric acid-based cleaner. This should be done only by an experienced contractor.

Don't use any of the following: cleaners that contain acid (bathroom, grout or tub cleaners), ammonia, bleach or vinegar, or alkaline cleaners not formulated for that type of stone. Stay away from dry, abrasive cleaners that would scratch the stone.

You may want to try using a dishwashing detergent applied with a soft-bristle brush, followed with a clean water rinse. It may or may not work, depending on the kind of dirt on the sandstone and the depth of penetration.

Once clean, seal the stone with Dupont StoneTech Bulletproof Sealer, following the instructions on the container. Be sure to use a paint pad to apply the sealer, never a cloth.

Q. I read in your response to use Oxy-Boost to remove paint chalking. Will it harm window glass, as TSP will?

A. The manufacturer assures me there is no risk of damage to window glass.

You can buy Oxy-Boost directly from the manufacturer (oxyboost.com) or through the distributor (ecogeeks.com).

Q. I read your column every week in the Daily Herald. I was going to change the walls in my shower in the basement from a liner kit to simulated white tile panels. The shower base is a one-piece polymer pan with a center drain. The surface is very rust-stained, and I am reluctant to change it with the walls resting on it and having no idea what lies below.

Do you have any suggestions for cleaning agents to use to remove the rust stains?

A. Try Zud, which you can find in hardware stores. Follow the directions on the container.

Q. We recently had our community's asphalt driveways torn out and repaved. Some of the driveways have sidewalks between the village street and the garage aprons. There is also grass on each side of the driveway sections.

When the contractor tore out the old asphalt and repaved those sections, he did not cover the sidewalks. As a result the sidewalks have a lot of rubber tire marks from the Bobcat tractors and pieces of the new asphalt rolled into the concrete.

Other than scraping off the pieces of crushed asphalt, what would you recommend the concrete sidewalks be cleaned with that would not harm the grass?

A. Scrape off all foreign material down to the concrete. The tire marks on concrete can be removed with a blowtorch, but do not use the torch on asphalt; it would melt it.

It may also work in removing any asphalt remnants from the concrete.

Q. We had Marblestone installed in our master bath as a vanity top and a shower surround. The fabricator and installer said to clean it with water only and to seal it once per year. With each passing month, the shower gets cloudier and water stained, even though we squeegee it after every use. Our town is on well water, and we soften it with iron-removing salt. We have unsuccessfully used water, diluted dish soap, an "all natural" cleaner and Granite Gold Daily Cleaner - and still it gets worse. We were instructed not to use vinegar, which seemed like a logical solution. Can you offer any advice?

A. The granite cleaner you used etched the marble, as would any product with an acidic base, such as vinegar. The dish soap you used may have had an acidic base, as many do. Try using Dawn dish soap, which has an alkaline base.

Another suggestion is to try to clean the shower walls with Super Shine-All or other brands of cleaners specifically made for cleaning marble, which you should be able to buy in stores selling marble and some hardware stores.

If none of the above works, you may want to try Hillyard Citrus-Scrub, which has a neutral pH.

Hillyard has several distributors in Illinois. Its website is www.hillyard.com. On the top line, click on "Hillyard Locations," enter your ZIP code in the search box at the top right and click the search icon.

Unfortunately, if all else fails, it may take a professional to grind the surface of the marble. Once the marble has been restored to its original state, be sure to seal it with Dupont's StoneTech Bulletproof Sealer, following the directions for application.

• Henri de Marne was a remodeling contractor in Washington, D.C., for many years, and is now a consultant. His book, "About the House," is available at www.upperaccess.com. His website is www.henridemarne.com. Email questions to henridemarne@gmavt.net, or mail First Aid for the Ailing House, Universal Uclick, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106.

© 2016, United Feature Syndicate Inc.

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