HELP?

The cider block basement down on the home place is leaking (seeping) water in with all this rain we've had.

The ol' boy that farms the place says it ruined the carpet and that two walls are cracked.

How can I repair this thing without a big repair bill? I'm not gonna sink a small fortune in it, fer sure.

Probably be another 60 years before we get this much rain again. :>(

Allan

Small tile around the outside a few feet down to help catch the runoff. Down spouts. Huge unbrella over the house to keep the rain off!

Get rid of the carpet and open the windows when (after) you get so much rain???? Other than that a lot of digging.......

Good Luck,


Dave

Make a critical examination of the land grading around the house and be sure that all water is directed away from structure. Check especially carefully at gutter down spouts and make sure all gutters are clean and draining/sloping properly.

There is a product called Surewall that is a sealer and is applied on the interior block walls that does a nice job of sealing/reinforcing concrete block walls. I've done this job twice...a home we owned...and at Dad's house. Stuff can be trowled on or use a nappy roller. It is soft white in color when dry.

Alternative would be to excavate and tar/plastic from outside...most likely quite $$$ compared to surewall from interior.

Good luck and let us know how things turn out.

Rick

Slope the dirt away from the foundation. Add it if you must. The code here is 6" of fall for every 10' of run. I prefer 6" of fall for every 4' of run. Doing that will all but prevent any more runoff into the basement, but nothing will fix the cracked wall cheaply. Sure, you can seal the crack, but it will come back no matter what.

I would say the cheapest is to do what several other have suggested, fill, slope, and get a good grass cover. Then look at the downspouts, etc.

I used to help my uncle, he had a backhoe and was a concrete man. We dug several out, laid tile drains, then gravel over the drain field,etc. We would clean and tar the wall, on one we fixed a crack with a huge piece of steel, bolted throgh the wall, it was a job.

On one we even poured a second concrete wall on the outside of the old one, after bolting the steel on to pull the leaning part back in line.

Never tried the paint on stuff on the inside, but if you can get the inside clean and dry, I would think it would help.

Good luck, Gene

PS, or do like we did when the old home place was in need of repaid, sell it and an acre of two of land to a young couple for a fix-r-uper.

Like was mentioned, check the existing grade around the building, re-adjust, improve as necessary, gutters and directing roof run-off away, all will help.

Thing that I would want to know more about is those cracks, masonry foundations are so darned porous, between the hollow cells in the block, the concrete finish on the block, ( when the molds get worn for C.M.U. concrete masonry units, the finish is rougher) can be even more porous, depends on how they came out of the molds. Concrete itself is porous, so if there is not water proofing on the exterior, she's gonna soak it up, if the surrounding fill is saturated and that wall has yielded to it, you will have to relieve that problem, brace and shore that sucker up if need be, If it's just a shrink or otherwise old and unrelated crack, everything is stable, not so bad, but you want to make sure it's not been compromised, mortar joints holding, no other signs of failure etc.

Get er dried out and research waterproofing products, you should be able to put a dent in it from the inside, based on what contractors do to mitigate moisture and thermal problems. Once she's dried, should be able to apply some kind of material, might even be materials that will go on when wet, hard to say.

Worst case is digging up around the foundation and installing a drain, I have done that a few times, makes a mess of an occupied and landscaped place, had they done it right in the beginning. etc. second time around ain't no picnic.

More you can do on your own, less costly it will be, I'd really take a close look at those cracks and see what you can make of it, that would be of highest priority.

Allan,
Fill the interior cracks with "hydraulic cement".
You can get it at a hardware store in small buckets. It's premixed and goes on the wall when wet or dry.
Pete

ruined the carpet or jes got it wet? Wet/dry shop vac will suck out most & fans will do the rest

There is a product that paints on the inside of the blocks to cure the porosity; called UGL Drylok. 2 Coats will seal the blocks pretty well. (Stinks when applying.)Local building supply stores should have it.

They make a good crack sealer used by a lot of foundation repair companies around here. Comes in a tube from Lowest and Home cheapo and other places. They use a high pressure caulking gun to push it into the crack. Clean the crack of loose stuff and maybe hit it with a grinder to widen the crack to give the compound a place to set. It's near impossible to do but a bell bottom crack will hold better.

Long term fix is to take your bucket or get a hoe and dig out the outside. Seal the crack from the outside like you did the inside. Then coat or recoat the outside wall with a foundation asphalt sealer. Check to see if the foundation is settling. Cinder block is porous but cracks usually occur along the mortar joints.

When you backfill, try to backfill a couple feet within the wall with some porous fill material such as sand so the water flows away from the crack instead of building up hydraulic pressure because of the wet expansion by clay which retains water and applies pressure to the wall making it crack.

Besides the slope and gutter ideas already mentioned, attribute this to the rainy year if this is a first time for the house and then don't put down any expensive bear skin rugs in the basement. I have one to fix out at the farm but it isn't in a living area and it really only leaks during a big rain. Have everything ready, just need a spare weekend to do it.

Allan,

We have 43 inches of rain a year,so
grading around a building is very important.

The place to stop water is before it gets to
the wall,once it gets in the wall it is nearly
impossible to stop it permanently,any sealer on
the inside just holds the water in the wall
and it will come thru eventually .

I was in the dirt pushing biz for a number
of years before I got in the repair biz. I
still go out once in a while and do a finish
grade around a house just to keep the new
generation of dirt pushers honest.

george

You need to have catch basins in the ground to catch the surface water and install drain pipe to catch any water from downspouts from the roof. Have it sloped away so it can drain to another area away from the building. Hal
PS: Home Depot carried this at one time.

They make a plastic drain that goes around the inside of the wall and leads to a sump with pump. As you do not have this much rain often control it from the inside. Get you rain spouts to drain well away from the house. Watch the walls for bowing. f that starts you have two options. Dig up the walls and redo them or tear the house down. Because if they start to bow the will fall in.

Alan, Gene -MO,Got it right. Built My son in laws house several years ago, mater of fact in 1980, laid up the block above ground EXCEPT the north wall.Did the dozer work and dug the north wall opening in the bank. Well come the rains and mold and water seeped in . the bed rooms down stairs showed mold and wet. He called an excavator with a backhoe to come out and dig around the north wall about 3 feet from the block. I told him to pitch the block ,wrap it with heavy mill visquene,set 2" high density darafoam over the visquene,then a 6" perferated drain tube next to the 2" darafoam .bring the tubing around the sides on a inch per 8 foot fall, fill the ditch with 1"1/2 rock ,back fill and grade away from the house.stopped the water ,mold. dampness for good. The block is not leaning into the basement. It was caught in time to avoid that problem. Can't use guttering up here as it fills with snow & icey rain, causing back up under the starter shingles.Rots the roof decking in short order. You will likely have to do about the same except your basement is probably down in the soil on 4 sides, then a sump pit would be required a ways from the house with a sump pump to bring the excess water up and far away from the home. If you do the manual labor and supply the material, it wouldn't cost an arm and a leg. you can back fill and do the grading with your tractor, Saves mucho bucks.
Lots of luck PAl .
LOU .

I'm not sure what to do about the cracked and bowed wall. If it's only a small crack in the mortar then I wouldn't worry about it. You could dig around the house and put on something like Delta MS or some other sort of membrane system. Get the down spouts away from the house and see if you can divert the water from the house(though that could get expensive). The other thing that I've thought aobut(for our own house) is a drainage tile down about 2 feet and put plastic up the wall and out about 2 feet(sloped into the tile) As long as the tile doesn't get clogged you should be good to go.

check into anchored walls...We had a lot of flooding in this area in the last few years and I've heard a lot of good things about it.I think the business is called anchored walls or anchor not sure. I can ask around and get more info if needed or interested.
Kevin

Get a backhoe and dig down under the level of the wall and put a tile in to carry the water away from the house.While the dirt is out of the way fix the crack somehow.Pouring another wall would be one way,or the plate like someone else said.

without seeing the terrain ,,,along with the membrane wall, SUMP PUMP would be best investment ,,

Squidgee System for dry basements.
With the SquidGee Dry™ System in place, walls can easily be paneled or finished. ... The SquidGee Dry™ System can turn your wet basement into a comfortable ...
www.waterproof.com/ -
I have used it and it can work well. The cost is sure better than many drastic solutions. Check it out. Jim

Squidgee System for dry basements.
With the SquidGee Dry™ System in place, walls can easily be paneled or finished. ... The SquidGee Dry™ System can turn your wet basement into a comfortable ...
www.waterproof.com/ -
I have used it and it can work well. The cost is sure better than many drastic solutions. Check it out. Jim