I hope the attached picture is clear enough… it is the basement wall of a friend’s house. The house has some pretty profound water intrusion problems and as a result (at least in my opinion) there has been a lot of settling, shifting, and cracking of plaster and tile. At any rate, the basement has a lot of white powdery stuff that I understand to be residual salts and minerals, or otherwise known as effloresence. Some of the basement wall has deteriorated, at least on the surface… and what you see in the picture is a bad attempt at repair. The question is — will effloresence, or long term water leakage actually break down the concrete? Is that why patches of the foundation wall surface has fallen apart? Does this bespeak greater weakening of the foundation through and through? Thanks in advance.
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The question is -- will effloresence, or long term water leakage actually break down the concrete?
Yup.
There is probably a window well just outside the wall that collects water?
Proper grading away from the house at ground level, cleaning/fixing gutters, digging out window well floor and filling with washed gravel, etc. will go a long way to solving many water problems with minimal work.
Beer was created so carpenters wouldn't rule the world.
Thanks IdahoDon,A quick question... could you expand a bit on filling the window well with gravel? How deep? Should there be some sort of geotextile to filter and if so, where would that be positioned? Should the outside wall of the foundation be treated in any way with a waterproofing substance? Also, regarding patching the areas on the inside of the basement... Would Rapid Set Cement Grout be a good candidate for something like that? Thanks again.
A quick question... could you expand a bit on filling the window well with gravel? How deep? Should there be some sort of geotextile to filter and if so, where would that be positioned? Should the outside wall of the foundation be treated in any way with a waterproofing substance?
By filling the window well a "few inches" you are in effect acting as a filter with the stone, which should wash stone and not something like crush and run (it doesn't have all of the fines in it to allow for the water to filter through it).
Also, there should definitely be "waterproofing", not "damp proofing" (I hate when builders use damp proofing and call it good, but that is for another thread!), on the exterior of a foundation wall, especially with habitable space on the other side of the wall. IRC code actually requires that waterproofing be applied on sub surfaces up to grade level.
Would Rapid Set Cement Grout be a good candidate for something like that?
For repairing the poured concrete walls (I assuming that is what they are, but cannot tell from the picture, could be parged block) on the interior, Hydrostatic Cement is always a good choice.
could you expand a bit on filling the window well with gravel?
The type of soil in your area will determine how fast water will perk into the ground. If the soil drains well then very little gravel is needed, but some places hardly drain at all and more area needs to be dug out and filled with washed gravel.
In good draining soils I still put 1' of washed gravel, but if there is a lot of clay it's a good idea to dig down and add as much as needed to keep the water level down to where it isn't trying to get into the house through the foundation.
I can't comment much on the various products to fix a damaged foundation since it's rare in these parts to have a foundation old enough to have significant damage yet in good enough shape to go through the effort to save. If that makes any sense.
Beer was created so carpenters wouldn't rule the world.
effloresence, is the bleeding of salt from concrete as water pass through. effloresence it self is not harmful. just ugly. you can wash it away and still get more because you have not stop the water migration.
Now water will hurt anything, stop the water and your problems are over.