Written by Water Problems? Get Xypex!
Okay here’s the deal. Everyone has a water problem in their house at one time or another. I’ve seen brand-new houses that have moisture coming through the block walls in their basements.
Of course there can be a number of reasons for this and you’ll find the there are a number of fixes for these problems. It is amazing how many suggestions you will get from people when you tell them you have a water problem in your basement.
Being a contractor and running into these problems during my many years in the construction business, I have looked and researched many products over the years. I really enjoy trying to find the so-called needle in the haystack, that is a product or device or anything out there that can solve a problem that seems to be almost unsolvable.
This brings me to a rather large and addition we put on to an existing house in a fairly high classed neighborhood. After we added on to the side of this existing house, there was an area of concrete floor in a screened in porch, that was right up against our new in addition, in which there was a long history of standing water on the floor whenever the wind blew rain through the screens.
Prior to building the new addition this problem was more of a nuisance than anything else. They would have to sweep the water out through the door of the porch and that would pretty much be the end of it.
Now with a new addition attached whenever it rained hard enough for there to be standing water inside the porch, it settled up against the new wall of the addition and ran down through the edge of the concrete into a storage closet in the basement of our new and addition.
So the trials began. We tried everything out there. Filling it with every type of patch from concrete itself to Drylock and other similar products, nothing seemed to work. This not only became very aggravating for us but it was also causing us problems with the homeowner. The homeowner told us we needed to get this problem fixed.
So that caused me to go into my searching mode. It’s kind of like going metal detecting. If you own a metal detector then you know what I’m talking about. You go out looking, trying to find something and hoping that what you come up with will be of great value.
Unfortunately most of the time you find pennies, pull tabs, and other metal objects of no value. But then, if you search long enough, you find that one coin that is really worth something. I once found a twenty dollar bill lying on the ground, but that is another story.
So in all my searching I discovered a product that was very difficult to find but by using some of my resources on the Internet I came across this new product called Xypex. And now here is a commercial for Xypex.
Xypex Patch’n Plug is formulated as a crystalline, fast setting none shrink, high bond strength, hydraulic cement compound for concrete repairs. It stops flowing water in seconds and is used to seal cracks, fill tie-holes and other defects in concrete.
I think the most important words in this description are “stops flowing water in seconds”! That is exactly what this did when we applied it to the edge of the concrete floor that was right up against our new addition.
What makes this product so different than everything else that’s out there is that it actually has a chemical reaction that takes place at the concrete surface or immediately adjacent areas and this reaction continues deep into the concrete structure. In their independent testing they measured the depth of penetration into a cast in place concrete block at 12 inches.
The next question arises how long will this product last? The answer is it is permanent. It will not deteriorate under normal conditions and is resistant to aggressive chemicals.
This company has a wide array of products that you got to check out. One of the most useful products is there Xypex Concentrate. It comes as a dry powder that you mix with water and apply to a surface with a heavy brush. We applied twice to concrete block walls that had dampness and guess what? The dampness went away and did not come back.
The website will give you all the information you need for applying this and all their line fo products.
This is why I chose this to be the product of the month for July. It is truly an amazing product.
To find out more about Xypex and find out where you can get it, go to www.xypex.com.
