Who to Call for What
We do water and foundations. These are the neighbouring jobs that come up constantly in the same conversation.
| What you need | Who does it | Worth knowing |
|---|---|---|
| Gutters, downspouts, gutter guards | Gutter installer | Frequently the cheapest fix for a wet basement. Do this before anything expensive. |
| Regrading, drainage swales, curtain drains | Landscaper or excavation contractor | Exterior water management. Ask specifically about grading away from the foundation. |
| Mould testing and remediation | Certified remediation contractor / testing lab | Use an independent tester rather than one who also sells remediation, where you can. |
| Radon testing and mitigation | Radon mitigation contractor | Genuinely relevant in NH granite country. A basement you are about to seal up is a basement worth testing. |
| Home inspection | Licensed home inspector | Ask what their report actually covers regarding foundations and moisture — scopes vary. |
| Structural assessment | Structural engineer | The right call for horizontal cracking, bowing walls or anything displacing. Independent of any contractor. |
| Plumbing leak detection | Licensed plumber | A sump running constantly with no weather correlation is occasionally a supply leak. |
| Septic system work | Septic contractor | A saturated leach field can put water where you do not want it. |
No business pays to appear here and we take no referral fees. Named local listings are being verified before publication rather than scraped — if you run a gutter, grading, remediation or radon business serving these towns and want to be considered, get in touch.
If You Own an Antique Foundation
This region has a great deal of eighteenth and nineteenth century housing, and its cellars need a different approach from a modern basement. The single most damaging thing done to them is being treated like poured concrete.
NPS Preservation Brief 2 — Repointing Mortar Joints
The definitive free reference on repointing historic masonry. If you are getting quotes on an old foundation, this is worth forty minutes — it will let you ask the right questions about mortar.
NH Preservation Alliance
Statewide resource for historic-building owners, including guidance and referrals on appropriate repair methods for old New Hampshire houses.
The short version, again: a fieldstone foundation was built to let moisture pass. Do not seal the inside face. Repoint with lime-based mortar, never hard Portland mix. Manage water rather than blocking it. And accept that a level of damp in a two-hundred-year-old cellar is normal — the question is whether it has changed.
Maps, Records and Rules
| Resource | What it covers |
|---|---|
| FEMA Flood Map Service Center | Look up your property's flood zone. Relevant to insurance and worth knowing before buying near water. |
| NHDES Water Division | Groundwater, wetlands and shoreland programmes. Relevant if drainage work is near a wetland or protected shoreland. |
| Your town building department | Permits for structural work, and the authority on local frost depth and setbacks. |
| Your town conservation commission | Consulted where drainage work touches a wetland or shoreland buffer. |
| Your insurance agent | What your policy actually covers — see below, because the answer surprises people. |
What insurance typically does not cover
This catches people every spring, so it is worth stating plainly: groundwater seepage and surface water intrusion are commonly excluded from standard homeowner policies. The water that comes up through your floor-wall joint during the melt is usually not a covered loss.
Sudden events — a burst supply pipe, a failed water heater — are typically treated differently. And a water backup endorsement, which covers sump pump failure and sewer backup, is a separate add-on that many people with sumps do not have and assume they do.
None of that is legal or insurance advice, and policies differ. It is a prompt to read yours before March rather than during it.
Buying a House? Six Basement Questions
Go and look during or right after rain
A dry-looking basement in August tells you very little. If you can, view in a wet week — or at minimum ask directly whether it takes water in spring.
Look for the evidence, not the water
Efflorescence (white mineral staining), a tide line on the wall, rust at the bottom of appliance legs, new paint on one wall only, or everything stored up on pallets.
Is there a sump? Does it have backup?
A sump tells you the basement takes water. No backup tells you what happens in an outage.
Ask about the crawl space
If there is one, look in it. A dirt floor under a heated house is a permanent humidity source and a future cost.
Ask what the foundation is
Fieldstone is not a defect, but it is a different maintenance commitment and it constrains what can sensibly be done later.
Check the downspouts and the grade
Two minutes outside. If runoff is being delivered to the foundation, you have found either the existing problem or the next one.