Hello. I am a homeowner with basement problems. My basement is about 1680 square feet. I was quoted $22,000 to dig around outside two feet, put evercreet on all cracks, waterproofing stuff 1/4 in. with thick plastic, and gravel to fill. On the inside digging around the perimeter, putting holes in the bottom brick, two sump pits with gravel and a dry well away from the house. This with two double sump pumps in the sump pits and an evercleen air cleaner. Guaranteed with a warranty for life at $45.00 per year. I know this may be difficult to advise me on, but I am single and don't want to spend so much not to have what I need. My house is built about 8 inches below the natural water table. Any suggestions or information would be greatly appreciated. Thank you. Homeowner22

How do you know where the water table is? Actually, it can vary throughout the year.

If the outside work is done correctly, you may not need the inside work at all. I don't know the brand names of the products you mention...architects work with generic terms and not brand names. Any cracks or other openings in your foundation should be patched with hydraulic cement. Then the walls should be coated with thick black dampproofing compound, and 6-mil polyethylene film should be embedded in the dampproofing. Both dampproofing and film should extend from finished grade all the way down to and over the footings. Then, backfill with pea gravel extending out at least 18 inches from the wall.

You should install a footing drain outside the foundation at footing level, and pipe it to a drywell located far from the house and preferably downhill from it, or discharge to daylight if possible. Do not connect your roof downspouts to the footing drain!

There will probably not be a need for the inside system at all.

homeowner 22
What you are being offered is an interior drain system. The outside work, digging a 2 foot trench and running a shallow drain is next to worthless, and allows this particular company to charge you a ridiculous price. You could have a good interior water control system installed for around $10,000, so you have to ask youself is the shallow drain worth $12,000.
Unless you are digging to the footer on the outside, you are not going to receive much benefit. I bet you could find a company in your area that will actually waterproof, dig to the footer, repair the cracks, waterproof the walls, install new drainage, footer tile and downspout lines, and backfill with stone for less than that inflated price. Shop around, do some research, and do not sign a contract on the spot regardless of how much of a discount they offer you.

homeowner22, we live in PA, we are having the outside of our walls waterproofed. They will dig down 2 feet below the basement floor and 2 feet wide. We live in a twin house (a shared center wall) and we have a porch on the front and a sunroom on the back so the only wall that can be done is the long side wall, it is 42' long and they will need to dig aproximately 8 feet down. They will remove the existing 3 window wells and pour new window wells when they are finished. The cost is $5000. for the job. We had another bid for $5,400 , they were not going to do under the window wells they were going to leave the existing wells and skip that area. Our basement walls are 22" thick stone, our house was built in 1926. we get moisture through the cracks between the stones, we talked to 2 homeonwers on our street that had this done and both said that their balsements are dry now.
You might want to get other estimates. Good luck.

maplewood - If you don't mind, I'd really like to know who you're hiring to do the work. I'm in PA too and figure that I may need this type of work done in the next few years so if you've found a good company, I'd love to know who they are because there don't seem to be many companies that do "outside work".

Thanks