What are you seeing?

Start with the symptom. Each entry says what it usually means and where to read more. None of this replaces someone looking at the house, but it will make the phone call shorter and the visit more useful.

Call (973) 555-0118

You will be put through to an independent local waterproofing company. Calls may be recorded.

A wet line where the floor meets the wall

The floor slab and the wall are poured separately, and the joint between them is never watertight. When the soil outside fills with water, that joint is the first place it shows. If it happens along more than one wall, patching the joint will not hold; the water needs somewhere to go.

A streak or trickle from one crack

A single crack in a poured wall that leaks in the same place every storm is one of the simpler repairs. Check whether the crack is the same width top to bottom and whether one side stands proud of the other. A crack that is widening, or a wall that has bowed, needs a structural opinion before any waterproofing; say so when you call.

White powder on the walls

The powder is mineral salt left behind when water passes through masonry and dries on the surface. It brushes off and does no harm in itself. It does tell you water is moving through that wall, and the height of the powder shows how high.

A musty smell, or pipes that drip in summer

If the smell peaks in July and August and the cold water pipes sweat, the cause is probably humid air condensing on cool surfaces, not water coming through the walls. That is the cheap end of the problem. A smell that follows rain points to seepage.

Water under a basement window

Look in the window well during rain. If it fills like a bucket, the well has no working drain or the ground around it tips water in. If the well is dry and the wall below the window is wet, the frame or the wall around it is leaking.

Damp spreading from cracks in the floor

Water rising through the slab means the ground under the house is saturated. Sealing floor cracks pushes the water to the next weak point. This is a job for drainage under the floor and a pump.

The floor drain brings up dirty water

Grey or foul water rising from a floor drain, a basement toilet or a laundry sink is a sewer problem, not a waterproofing one. Stop using water in the house and call a plumber. In Clifton the Sewer Division of Public Works responds to sanitary sewer blockages and house lateral stoppages; its number is 973-470-2239.

A sump pump that runs all the time

Three usual causes. The pump is too small for the water arriving. The discharge pipe ends so close to the house that the same water comes straight back. Or the check valve has failed and each cycle falls back into the pit. A pump that hums without moving water has a jammed or worn impeller.

Puddles against the house after rain

Go out in a downpour with an umbrella. Watch where each downspout empties and which way the ground and the walks slope. Roof water dumped at the foundation is a frequent cause of a wet basement, and usually an inexpensive one to cure.

A soft or cold floor over a crawl space

Open the hatch and look with a flashlight. Standing water, insulation hanging from the joists or grey fuzz on the wood all mean the space has been damp for a long time. Wood that dents under a screwdriver has begun to rot.

Notes worth making before you call

Which walls get wet, and how high up.
How long after the rain starts the water appears, and how long it stays.
Whether it happens in every storm or only the long, soaking ones.
What the walls are: poured concrete, hollow block or stone.
Whether there is a sump pump, and where its pipe ends outside.

A few phone photos of the wet area and of the outside of the same wall help whoever comes to look.