Why We Started this Basement Remodeling Company

20 Years ago, Lawrence Janesky started a basement waterproofing business called Basement Systems. Today, with 350 waterproofing contractors in 6 countries who use Basement Systems' products and methods, the company is widely recognized as the leader in basement waterproofing and dirt crawl space repair.

Basement Systems holds 24 patents on products used in basements and crawl spaces with many more pending, and has been awarded 17 innovation prizes, awards for Business Integrity, Quality, and has been named one of the 10 Best Places to Work in the state of Connecticut by the 170 employees who work for the company. Basement Systems has truly been a great success story, and continues to "break the mold" (pun intended).

At Basement Systems and Total Basement Finishing we learn from our dealers and distill the best of the best ideas for products, methods, systems, and ways of doing just about everything in the course of running a business that fixes basements and crawl spaces. Since 1987 when Lawrence Janesky started in the industry, he has been an avid learner of "Building Science," and even fixed 4,000 homes with radon problems in the air and water.

Janesky has written three books in addition to this one; "Dry Basement Science," "Dirt Crawl Spaces: America's Housing Epidemic," and "Crawl Space Science" (available at amazon.com).

Through the years, we have seen thousands upon thousands of basements that were finished. Some done well, most poorly, but all vulnerable to the inevitable enemy that will come in a basement – water, in whatever form. And it does not have to be a "wet" basement for the finished job to be destroyed and rendered an interior wasteland.

We know what not to do extremely well. After seeing so much of the problem, we knew we would recognize the solution to these ruined finished basements when it came along - and we did.

In 2007, Janesky met Bob Showers (far left) from Pennsylvania and his right-hand man Chris Schmidt. They recently developed the basement wall panel solution that we now sell. The irony is that there are many firms that specialize in "Finishing Basements." But after being avid and active in the building industry as participants and observers, and a long-time participant of the National Builders Show and other shows, and reading many trade journals for over 20 years, we have not seen an approach that would solve the problems of durability over time that the Total Basement Finishing System does.