Toronto · when water comes through the wall

Basement waterproofing in Toronto: what it costs, and what the City pays towards

A leaking basement in Toronto gets quoted one of two ways. Exterior waterproofing digs down the outside of the wall to the footing, membranes it and lays new weeping tile. Interior waterproofing cuts a channel along the inside of the wall, at the floor, and carries the water to a sump pump. Toronto contractors publish prices for both, per linear foot, and the two ranges overlap less than people expect.

This page sets out those published prices with the arithmetic done, which parts of a waterproofing job the City of Toronto pays towards and which it does not, when a building permit is needed, the licence the City requires of the company, and what home insurance does with water that came through a wall. Cracks on their own are on foundation crack repair; the subsidy line by line is on Toronto’s basement flooding subsidy.

Exterior or interior: what each one is

Exterior waterproofing stops water at the outside face of the foundation. The wall is excavated down to the footing, cleaned, repaired where it is cracked, covered with a waterproof membrane, and the old weeping tile at the footing is replaced. It is the larger job — landscaping, walkways and sometimes a deck come up — and it is the one that keeps the wall itself dry.

Interior waterproofing accepts that water will reach the wall and manages it inside. The floor is cut along the base of the wall, a drainage pipe is laid in a channel, and the water is led to a sump pit, where a pump lifts it outside. Nothing is dug up outside, and the sump pump becomes the part that has to keep working.

Which one a house needs is a diagnosis, not a preference. Water arriving through a single crack is a crack repair; water arriving along the whole wall line after rain is drainage; water rising out of a floor drain is a sewer backup, which neither kind of waterproofing fixes. The four patterns are on telling basement flooding apart.

What Toronto companies publish

Two of the waterproofing companies that rank for Toronto searches put prices on their own pages, per linear foot of wall. These are their figures, quoted as they publish them:

Per-foot prices only mean something against a length. On a 30-foot stretch of wall, for example, the arithmetic is:

Three things follow. First, the ranges are wide because the jobs are: depth to the footing, what is in the way, the state of the wall and whether the weeping tile is replaced all move the number. Second, interior is cheaper at the low end but the two methods overlap — Direct’s interior ceiling is above its exterior ceiling. Third, neither figure includes a sump pump unless the quote says so, and an interior system is not finished without one. Sump pump pricing in Toronto, with the City’s share worked through on real invoices, is on sump pump installation in Toronto.

Two companies is a small sample, and both are selling the work. They are on this page because they publish numbers at all. Treat them as the shape of a quote, and ask for yours to be written the same way: linear feet, rate, and what is and is not included.

What the City pays towards, and what it does not

Toronto’s Basement Flooding Protection Subsidy pays for named devices and work, not for waterproofing as such. The lines that fall inside a waterproofing job are these:

Read against a quote, that means the City pays 80 per cent of the invoiced sump pump, battery backup and severance work, each up to its own cap, and nothing towards the membrane, the excavation, the interior drainage channel or crack injection — none of those is on the programme’s list. On the 30-foot interior example above, the subsidy can reach the pump that finishes the system, not the channel that feeds it. Ask the contractor to invoice the subsidised items as separate lines; a single lump sum for “waterproofing” makes the eligible part hard to show.

The conditions attach to the whole application, not to each line: your downspouts must already be disconnected, the application goes in within two years of installation, and the contractor must have held a valid City of Toronto business licence at the time of the work. A subsidised sump pump must also discharge where the City says:

Permit, licence, and the paperwork order

So the City’s own lists draw the line roughly where the job changes character. Waterproofing repairs to a basement are an example of work that needs no building permit, and so is installing a sump pump. Excavating or constructing foundations, underpinning, a new basement entrance, new plumbing and a backwater valve are on the permit side. A waterproofing contract that also lowers the floor, rebuilds a footing or adds a valve has crossed it. The City also says its list of permit-free work is not exhaustive and that the Zoning Bylaw still applies, so a quote that bundles structural work should say who is getting the permit.

The licence is the City’s, and it is separate from any trade certificate. It matters twice on this job: it is a condition of operating, and the subsidy requires that the contractor held a valid City business licence when the work was done. Some Toronto waterproofers print their licence numbers on their own sites — Direct, above, does; if a quote does not show one, ask for it before signing, not when the subsidy form asks.

Before you pay for either

The federal guidance on foundations is useful here because it is not selling anything. It separates the cracks a homeowner can seal from the ones that need a professional, and it puts the cheap causes first:

Before a waterproofing quote, look at what is above the wall. A downspout emptying beside the foundation, a flowerbed sloping towards the house, or an eavestrough that overflows in heavy rain can put more water against one wall than any membrane is designed to handle. The City already requires the downspouts to be disconnected from the sewer; directing them well away from the wall is a low-cost test of whether the leak is a drainage problem. Eavestrough and grading costs are on eavestrough repair.

And if the basement is about to be finished, the order is fixed: stop the water first, then insulate and frame. Natural Resources Canada says not to insulate a basement with moisture problems from the inside. Drywall over a wall that still seeps is how a waterproofing problem becomes a mould problem; what that costs to undo is on mould removal.

What insurance does with water through a wall

Water that comes through the foundation is the case home insurance is least likely to cover by default. IBC says groundwater and seepage cover are typically not standard; where they are sold they are optional endorsements. GIO describes ground water cover as reaching water that enters suddenly and accidentally through the foundation or a basement wall — which leaves out a slow seep. Waterproofing itself is maintenance, paid by the owner. The policy question is the water damage that came before it; what to check is on ground water coverage.

Questions people actually ask

Where to read next

• Toronto’s subsidy, every line
• Toronto sump pumps
• Foundation crack repair
• Basement waterproofing in Mississauga
• Ground water coverage