Fix the Leak. Read the Wall.
Leaking basement wall crack? We inject it, seal it, and tell you honestly whether it's a routine repair or a sign your wall needs more. Freeze–thaw country is hard on foundations — Rochester cracks don't fix themselves.
Every poured concrete foundation develops some cracking — concrete shrinks as it cures, and hairline vertical cracks are practically a birthmark. The problem is what our climate does next. Water gets into a small crack, freezes, expands, and pries it wider. Clay soil swells when saturated and shrinks in drought, flexing the wall season after season. Give that cycle a decade or three and a harmless hairline becomes a reliable spring leak.
Expanding, flexible polyurethane foam fills the crack through its full depth — front to back — and stays flexible as the wall moves. The go-to fix for actively leaking cracks in poured walls.
Structural-grade epoxy welds the crack solid, restoring strength where a crack needs bonding, not just sealing. Best for dry, stable cracks where rigidity is the goal.
Block and stone foundations don't crack in one clean line — they leak through joints. We repoint failing mortar and, where seepage is widespread, pair repairs with interior drainage that handles the whole wall.
Injection repairs are quick — most single cracks are done in a couple of hours, from the inside, with no digging. That makes them one of the best value-for-money repairs in all of home ownership: a few hundred dollars now versus a wet finished basement later.
Most cracks are a water problem. Some are a wall problem. Here's the honest field guide:
Usually not — thin vertical cracks in poured concrete are the most common and least alarming kind, even when they leak. The ones that earn real attention are horizontal cracks, bowing, stair-step patterns that keep growing, and anything wide enough to slide a coin into. When in doubt, a free look settles it in ten minutes.
You can, and it's the most repeated advice on every home improvement forum — and the most repeated regret. Surface patches only plug the face of the crack; water still fills the wall behind the patch, freezes, and pops it loose, often within a season or two. Injection works because it fills the crack through the full thickness of the wall and moves with it.
Rule of thumb: polyurethane for leaks, epoxy for strength. Actively wet cracks need a flexible, expanding seal that cures in water; cracks that need structural bonding call for epoxy. Part of the estimate is simply telling you which yours is.
A properly injected crack shouldn't leak again — the material fills it completely and flexes with normal seasonal movement. If a wall keeps producing new cracks, that's a drainage and soil-pressure conversation, and often the smarter money is relieving the water with drainage or a perimeter system rather than chasing cracks one at a time.
Single-crack injection is one of the most affordable repairs we do — typically a few hundred dollars per crack depending on length and access. Local ranges for every service are on our cost page.
Free inspection, straight answer, written price — anywhere in Rochester & Monroe County.