[stomachmonkey]

Had a water issue in a small storage basement, roughly 30x10.

There were several contributing factors but a big one was poor soil and drainage too close to the house.

3 sides of the ground surrounding the basement were covered with concrete, driveway, patio etc.

The side that had soil on the other side of the wall had obvious issues.

Ground was properly graded for run off but the soil still soaked up water like a sponge which caused a roughly 36" compression issue starting at floor level and above. Looking at the wall you could see where pressure was forcing water thru the cinder blocks. Obvious the builder did not use a moisture barrier on the outside of the wall. Access on that side was limited so digging out to install one was not an option.

Eventually it created a pencil sized hole in the mortar couple of inches above the floor. You'd be shocked how fast a hole that small can turn into inches of water.

Was also getting water pushing up thru pinholes in the floor.

So 1st step was extending drain spouts as far from the house as possible. I trenched and extended with flexible PVC drain pipe about 9 feet away from the side of house.

Covered the ground entire length of wall and out away from house about 5 ft with heavy gauge plastic then covered with gravel.

Hydraulic cement for the pinholes in floor and mortar.

No more water.