Basement waterproofing across Ramsey County.

Limestone, river bluffs, brewery caves. Older basements per square mile than anywhere else in Minnesota.

St. Paul's urban core has more 19th-century housing than any other Twin Cities city. Stone foundations, rubble fills, hand-cut limestone retaining walls, basement entrances under bay windows. The downside of those eras is that nobody built waterproofing in the way we build it now. The basements were dug, the wall was stacked, and the homeowner figured the rest out.

The bedrock is the other story. Platteville limestone sits 30 to 60 feet under most of the city, and it is what made the brewery caves and storage tunnels of St. Paul possible. Where the limestone is close to the surface, groundwater perches on it and the basements above can stay wet for reasons that have nothing to do with surface drainage.

The neighborhood determines the era. The era determines the basement. The geology determines the water.

The first-ring Ramsey suburbs (Maplewood, Roseville, Shoreview, New Brighton) sit on glacial outwash plain to the north of the city. Sandier soils, post-war housing, and water tables that move with seasonal precipitation. The geology argues for different fixes than the urban St. Paul work, even though the trade is the same.

The work, county-wide.

Same crew, same warranty, same answer-the-phone service anywhere in Ramsey County.