Basement, sewer and roof deck waterproofing across Hudson County

Hudson County is twelve municipalities squeezed between the Hudson and the Hackensack, and the way basements leak depends heavily on where a building sits. Much of downtown Jersey City and Hoboken was built on old marsh and fill, and that low ground near the rivers holds a high water table. Basements there take groundwater pressure after long rains, with seepage at the cove joint and through old masonry. In Hoboken, with its brownstones and low streets, the problem is especially familiar to anyone with a below-grade apartment or storage room. Seepage there tends to come back every wet season until the pressure has somewhere to go.

Climb the Palisades into the Heights, Union City, West New York and North Bergen, and the picture changes. Rock sits close to the surface, so water runs along it and enters through foundation cracks and joints rather than rising evenly from below. West of the ridge, the Meadowlands side around Secaucus and Kearny brings large commercial flat roofs and low, flat land. Each area calls for a different starting point. We don't apply the same system everywhere; we read the ground and the building, then decide where the water is coming from. That reading often takes a single visit and saves owners from paying for the wrong fix.

Our Jersey City office at 218 Newark Avenue, downtown near the Grove Street PATH station, is where most of our Hudson County work is planned. From there our crews reach the rowhouse blocks of downtown, the walk-ups around Journal Square, the frame houses of Greenville and the towers along the waterfront. Narrow streets, permit parking and shared walls are a normal part of the day here. We plan staging, sidewalk protection and debris removal before arriving, so the block keeps moving while we work inside or on the roof. Neighbors get a heads-up when work touches a shared wall or a common roof.

Building types change from block to block, and so does access. A brownstone basement is reached through a front areaway or a low cellar door. A walk-up roof is reached through an interior hatch. A tower garage needs a schedule set with the property manager. We answer (201) 578-5199 around the clock, and when an emergency crew is free, one can be sent out the same night. For planned work, our Jersey City service pages break down how each neighborhood's buildings tend to fail and what we usually recommend first. Each of those pages is written around the buildings on that particular stretch of streets.