Basement Waterproofing in Orchard Park, NY

Shale, slopes and slow water

The Erie County soil survey chose several of its type locations in the town of Orchard Park, and they describe the ground well. Angola silt loam, described near Abbott Road and Route 20, and Darien silt loam, from near Route 20 and Transit Road, are somewhat poorly drained soils on shale-derived glacial till with slow permeability and a seasonal high water table. Aurora shaly silt loam, described near Route 20A and Abbott Road, is moderately deep to shale bedrock. Of the Aurora soils the survey says something every Orchard Park homeowner should hear: foundations and basements are benefited by drains that reduce the wetness associated with the seasonal high water table and lateral seepage, and although excavations are costly, the shale bedrock usually is rippable with a backhoe.

The phrase to notice is lateral seepage. Orchard Park is not flat. The survey describes the boundary between the lake plain and the plateau as formed by old glacial lake beaches, beyond which the topography rapidly changes, with steep valley walls commonplace. Water on a slope moves sideways through the thin soil above the shale and arrives at the uphill wall of a basement, which is why one wall is wet and the other three are dry in so many houses here.

A town built mostly since 1970

The village of Orchard Park, with about 1,500 housing units by the ACS 2024 five-year estimate, has an older core: roughly 16 percent pre-1940 and a large 1970s cohort at about 27 percent. The surrounding town, about 13,200 units, is a different profile: only about 8 percent pre-1940, with roughly 20 percent from the 1970s, 15 percent from the 1980s, 13 percent from the 1990s and 9 percent from the 2000s. This is a town of poured concrete foundations, many of them tall walls under large houses, on sloping lots with walk-out or partially exposed basements.

Poured walls leak at discrete points: shrinkage cracks near windows and corners, form tie holes, the cove joint and pipe penetrations. On a sloped lot the uphill wall takes the lateral seepage and carries the most cracks. Footing drains were standard in this era, but many discharge to a sump or to daylight through a line that has since been crushed, rooted or buried, and a drain with no working outlet is not a drain.

Draining an Orchard Park basement

The first question on an Orchard Park assessment is whether the existing footing drain has an outlet. Sometimes restoring the outlet solves the problem. Where it does not, a curtain drain across the uphill side of the lot intercepts lateral seepage before it reaches the house, and the wall's cracks are injected. Where the water is arriving under the slab, an interior drain along the uphill wall or the full perimeter, tied to a sump, takes over.

Slope is an asset here. Many Orchard Park lots have enough fall that sump and downspout discharge can run to daylight by gravity, which is more reliable than any pump. The town's storm and sanitary sewers are separate, and sump water goes to the storm side or to the surface, never the sanitary line.