Sump pump, interior drain, exterior dig down 24", seal cracks from inside & out, waterproof outside. I don't think they said new drains outside because they are not digging all the way down.

IMO get a couple more estimates with the exact same detail. But honestly it is something that needs to be done no matter how much it costs.

We currently do not have a dehumidifier. Several people have told to buy a dehumidifier, fix the one crack & move on. I'm stuck between spending $750 on the one crack/dehumidifier & $17000 on the entire basement that doesn't seem to giving us any other issues.

Well, the dehumidifer is probably a necessity for your basement anyway. I would repair the crack and put in a dehumidifier and see what happens. I dont blame you, since 17,000 is a lot to pay, and you may or not need to do that. Once crack is repaired, watch the basement carefully, and by next spring, you will know just what, if anything, else needs to be done. You might also want to check to see if the downspouts to your gutters are draining away from foundation and if the soil there is grading away from the house.

We got an 18k quote to mitigate our basement moisture problems, which are extensive. This quote is for an interior French drain system and a pair of sump pumps (apparently we have long enough that we need two sumps) and the associated labor and whatnot. No exterior excavation because the houses are too close together.

Our problems include permeable sandstone foundation walls (this is a very old house), poorly redone basement walkout steps that direct a torrent of water into the basement under the door when it rains hard (luckily there is a floor drain right there), and downspouts that don't direct water far enough from the house.

The thing about basements from this era was that they were never meant to be finished or lived in. They housed the boiler, coal for the boiler, and laundry sinks. So the basement has been this way for a hundred years, but making it so it can stay drier is good because it slows the decay of the mortar in the walls and makes the basement usable as storage space (we currently can't keep anything down there because it will immediately get moldy and start rotting. We've been running a dehumidifier. Getting one that could drain via hose was SO nice - we got tired of emptying that stupid bucket several times a day.

You can pipe the dehumidifier to the floor drain, if you have one, then you dont have to ever empty it.

Thank you so much. I think we are going to start with a humidifier & patch the crack & keep an eye on things. Here is the crack. That carpet is just laying on the floor, not finished.

Let us know how it works out for you.

We plan to stay in the house another 20 years or so till our kids are out of college, then we can downsize. We would like to finish in the next few years. we already have 3100 sq ft of living space now. The thought of adding another 1000 sq ft of finished space overwhelms me, so I’m in no rush to finish it. There is carpet, couch, tv, football & toys down there now. Seems to be fine for the kids right now.

We had crack from ceiling to floor, could fit a nickel, and leaked with heavy rainfall: I was dreading getting it fixed. Foundation guy used epoxy on inside, dug around the outside and repaired it from there too, plus parged all the cracks around outside. He also fixed cracks in parging around windows and recaulked (water stains visible on inside). We also extended our downspouts. Epoxy and parging cost around $1500, two days for guy. No more leaks and that stress is gone.

$1500 Sounds nice!!

Had a second company come out today & they will fix the crack from inside & outside for $1900. He said the rest of basement looked really good & nothing else concerning, but a dehumidifier would help with the moisture. I'm feeling better already!