Basement Wall Water Leak

[Ned nyna 11]

Guys,

I removed the tin supporting the baseboard hot water heat down one wall in the basement and found the source of the leak. Water was coming in beneath one of the bottom foundation wall blocks. The block wall is built on a footing and the floor of the basement is concrete.The opening is about an inch long and it looks like there always was a weakness in the mortar there.

The basement wall is accessible and I am planning to seal along the full length of the wall to fix the leak and improve the seal between the floor and the wall.

There is room enough to add 2 inches of sealant/mortar along the bottom blocks.

Should I use mortar or some kind of sealant?

[Moneyguy1]

Anything you do from the inside will not relieve the pressure. If the room is finished and you want to resolve the problem once and for all, I would respectfully suggest calling in an expert. There is an outside source of water that is not properly being drained. There was an episode of "Holmes on Homes" with a similar problem and it required digging out to the footing, installing a drainage pipe and God knows how many tons of gravel!!

Good luck. Keep us posted.

[cstreit]

Any outside hydrostatic pressure is eventually gonna push through most sealants. As MG said, unfortuantely this can mean digging out near the foundation and properly draining that area. I'd talk to a pro about it.

[Paul K]

FWIW,
we have a sump pump under our house- it used to work overtime when it was wet- spring thaw, heavy rain, etc. I installed a French drain across the back of our property (perforated pipe in gravel, as mentioned above), and I don't think the sump pump has run since (it works, I check it 2x/year). Might want to investigate the source of the water and see if you can divert it before it reaches the house- worked for me!

Good luck with it,

Paul.

[Porsche-O-Phile]

Exactly what Paul & Chris said - I'll bet your problem is related to hydrostatic pressure buildup and the absence of either a French drain or perforated clay pipe to drain outside the foundation wall-to-footing connection (in other words either a cheapass contractor or a *****ty detail). The only way to permanently (and properly) fix the problem is to excavate a trench on the outside of the wall to about the depth of the footing, install a French drain or clay pipe to drain and backfill (preferably with pea gravel).

Best of luck - I'd consider waterproofing the exterior of the foundation wall while you have the excavation open if it isn't already as a secondary preventive measure too. . .

[widgeon13]

There are some pretty good hydraulic cements available at your local hardware store. I have used one (can't remember the name, starts w/ D) and it has helped my problem. They are fast drying and you can only work a small part of a crack at a time. Material has to be mixed with water and expands as it dries. Necessary to clean out the crack and widen it to get some area to apply the cement. Might be worth a shot before calling in an excavation company to put in curtain drain and seal from the outside. If it's not that deep, consider doing it yourself w/ some rental equipment.

[MRM]

Drylock is the product whose name you were searching for. For sure seal the crack and paint the area with drylock. The problem is that if there is a crack in the wall the water will always get into the wall unless the crack is sealed on the outside of the wall. That means digging down to get at it. One summer a few years ago I did that at my mother's house. And other than spending a couple of days digging down to that level, filling the crack from the outside and sealing the inside with Drylock worked fine.

But the right way to do it is to call a profesional and have the foundation drain tiled and damp proofed on the outside.

[Keith Perry]

Plant a weeping willow nearby and your little problem may disappear. 8 to 12 footer should get it under control. When I was young, in the 40's and 50's, my brothers and cousins would spend half the summer it seemed out on the farm and Gramma would come out too, with projects, and off we'd go to clean graves, sometimes, and visit old houses and most with stacked rock basements. We usually had a project while 'visiting' and then Gramma would break out a picnic. Willows were used a lot for groundwater control. A Willow might do it. Or not

[Keith Perry]

Oh. And my mother's neighbor never in 30 yrs had basement water problems, cut down two big willows the developer originally planted on either side of the little field creek when he built the house, and has been flooded out ever since, even with doing most of what's been recommended above. Upstate New York, hill behind the house. flats off to the river.

[Dave L]

Willows do infact seak out water quite aggresivly, just be sure you dont have a pool

[john70t]

This could be a simple rain-drainage problem with a small leak, or it could be worse.

If the leak happens in the dry season, there could be a natural spring nearby, with your house foundation as one of the low points in its path. In that case, major re-routing of the flow will have to made at great cost.
A check with local guv'ment water table charts/elevation tables will cross that off the list.

Also, properties with a known history of mold will lose a lot of value, and come back to bite you in the a$h when it's time to sell or rent.
Open up everything and spray down with a 50/50 water/bleach solution with the windows open.

[Ned nyna 11]

Thanks Guys for the responses.

I am at the final stage of the basement water problem. We would get 1/2 inch of water after a big rainfall so I had to do something.

The house is on a slope with one end of the basement at grade level so my my first idea was to bring the foundation drains into a drywell outside and drain it off to the woods. This didn't improve anything as the drain pipes around the house are clogged. I should add that the house was built without any drain or sump in the basement!

Then I dug under the footing and ran a 4 inch drain into the drywell.

The footing goes round the perimeter of the basement and is about 1 foot wide and 8 inches thick, the top at the same level as the basement floor which is 4 inches thick and below the floor is 4 inches of gravel.

I figured that after 40 years the gravel would have settled some and would allow the water to run into the drain pipe.l

Sure enough this about fixed the problem completely because we had 4 inches rain in a day a few weeks ago and the basement stayed dry except for the one leak I described at the beginning of the thread. With the top off the drywell I could see the flow from under the basement.

My plan now is to plug the leak from the inside and seal up the wall where the bottom row of blocks are placed on the footing.

Theleak is coming from a window well on the outside that is not drained properly so I will get after that when I am finished with the inside sealing job.

[jorian]

".....I installed a French drain across the back of our property...."

Aren't these called freedom drains now?