My basement walls are literally turning to dust. Originally they were built of flat stone up to 4 ft. then brick to 6 ft. then plaster over the brick. Now the plaster has peeled off, the brick is turning to dust and the stone is crumbling. I’m envisioning a major redo of the walls but am wondering if it would be possible to do it without raising the house. Could I do short sections at a time? I thought of chopping out the corner of the basement and putting in a concrete column and then replacing short sections with block or poured concrete. Suggestions?
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How old is this basement? That'll happen to alot of the basements made of fieldstone and mortar. I've spec'd this type of repair before where you do it in small sections. If you remove the backfill, then pretty much all of the critical load is off of the basement walls. I've spec'd out placing a 3" column on a small pad footing and then casting the wall around the column, or you could go with a masonry wall and use masonry instead of the columns. I would use some sort of waterproof membrane as opposed to just tarring the outside of the wall to make sure that you don't have any issues with moisture - especially if there are cold joints in the wall.
J
Might be a good time to install a french drain.
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