What are my builder's obligations regarding the repair of a crack or leak?

According to Tarion, water penetration through the basement or foundation walls is covered under the two year statutory warranty. There is also a 7-year Major Structural Defect warranty that includes significant damage due to soil movement,* major cracks in basement walls (>6mm), collapse or serious distortion of joints or roof structure and chemical failure of materials. * Soil movement means subsidence, expansion or lateral movement of the soil not caused by flood, earthquake, “acts of God" or any other cause beyond the reasonable control of the builder.

TIP: If you are still covered under the two year statutory warranty the builder will only repair a crack if it is leaking (unless it is a crack >6mm wide). If you are worried about the crack's “leak potential", run your hose outside at the crack location for an hour or two. If it leaks, contact your builder to have it repaired.

Note: Builders rarely hire leading waterproofing contractors to perform their warranty repairs because it costs them too much. You can expect to have a sub-standard repair done because skilled waterproofers do not need to work at "rock bottom" rates. If you are about to finish your basement subsequent to a builder warranty repair, make sure you run your hose in the vicinity of the repair, for at least one hour, to confirm that the repair was successful. If you do not observe water ingress you should still consider having the leak injected if the builder simply applied hydraulic cement over the crack or leak.