DEAR TIM: My last house had a basement that leaked water. I’m building a new home and want my basement as dry as the Atacama Desert. I’m confident that my drain tile was not put in correctly at my ...

A dry basement is superb. A basement that leaks is anything but! To keep the basement of your new house dry, several important design elements need to be included in the exterior drainage and grading ...

Here in the Pacific Northwest, many of us have been faced with unwelcome water in our basements at one time or another. Saturated soils following periods of unrelenting rain -- or, this winter, snow - ...

Q. I live in a 1950s ranch house with a full basement. An architect’s old drawing of the house shows a cistern (a holding tank for rainwater, etc.) under the basement floor at one end. There is tile ...

Q: When it rains, I have a problem in my basement. After the earth is saturated, water enters through the foundation. I have an attached house and live on a hill. We have two bedrooms and a bath in ...

Editor’s note: In light of recent rains, we are reprinting a timely column originally published June 6, 2009. We have a 1973 two-story house with a basement that we’ve owned for about two years. The ...

My last house had a basement that leaked water. I’m building a new home and want my basement as dry as the Atacama Desert. I’m confident that my drain tile was not put in correctly at my last house.