I live in a home built in 1896 in upstate NY. It has a stone foundation with mortar joints. I am not sure if the stone were dry laid and filled at a later date. I would like to try and stop some of the water from coming through. I know it is impossible to stop all of it from the inside but I have an idea and I would like your input. I would like to clean out the mortar joints and try hydraulic cement instead of mortar. Would this help? Would this hurt? Thank you all for your consideration.
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greetings Mongo,
Did you move? Or it's another Mongo. At any rate, I've got your problem too. My walls are fieldstones; built in 1870 in Wisconsin. They have been cemented and filled over the years with various mortars; I think yours sounds more like flat stones stacked? With that many joints it would seem that it may end up being better to treat it from the outside, but i'm sure you've considered that.
I'm pretty much giving up. I'm adding new gutters and dealing with some groundslope issues including a front porch that leans the water toward the house. If that doesn't work I plan to stock the basement with trout and sell my boat. I will cut holes in my living room floor and get out my jig poles.
If you've got round stones, it may be worth your time; or maybe not. Wish i had the more definitive answer for you.
Scott
Mongo & Scott I have repointed a few older buildings, some with porous old brick and limestone rock ,one thing you don't want to use is hydralic cement. Repointing mortar is mortar that is mixed, allowed to set up somewhat then retempered so when it does harden it dosnt shrink because its chemical reaction has allready taken place,plus its worked into the raked out and cleaned joint a lot drier than regular mortar,that will take care of most of the leaks.also repoint with lime mortar if possable on older buildings,
The water that still makes it though, is usally infiltrating though small hailrine crackes in the wall material or still in the joints, what I do then is use a sealer called "Professtional water seal" or 'Frogskin" it comes in three different weights with the thinest being waterlike and the thickest having the cositancy of dish washing liquid, the good thing about the above products is that water will not infiltrate into the brick or rock but water vapor will exit through the dried membrane thus keeping the old brick and rock from spalling from trapped moisture.
i've got a similar problem, but mine doesn't involve water. I'm sicks and tired of cleaning up the sand that has fallen out ot the joints. I'm not getting any water, and teh stones are dry. How can I stop the sand from falling out though?
A few years ago I worked on an old plantation house and ajoining slave quarters, the mortar was so deterated that all was left was sand between the joints, a pressure washer with a fan spray removed 90% of the sand leaving nice clean joints, ready to repoint, I purchased a quickpoint mortar gun to inject the mortar into the joints then tooled the joints afterwards. that is the only way I know of to fix the problem you have, they might have a miracal spray or something that will consolidate the sand into a joint material but I am not familer with any such product.But hey I have tools and will travel, because there certainly isnt anything going on around here.
Thank you all for your wealth of information. I can now form a plan to get this under control. I never thought I could get it 100% waterproof with so many joints. I just wanted to improve the situation. Thank you all.
For the record this is Mongo1, realatively new resident at this zoo.Mongo, the orginal, is a different person. Of course we are all bored 12 year olds on the other side of the screen..
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A-holes. Hey every group has to have one. And I have been elected to be the one. I should make that my tagline.
Yes this is Mongo1, I have been trying to change my screen name for a week with no luck. Sorry for the confusion.
Check out the oldhouseweb on pre 1900 houses. There was some good info on just this problem. One of the best ideas seemed to be a bentonite [clay] treatment pumped into the ground from the outside. to make the area less pervious to water. These old stone foundations have to be thought of differently than modern conc. or block that can be made pretty dry.
If water infiltration is limited to a few major sites, on the outside, dig a hole or trench down a couple of feet or until you get tired, right up close to the foundation, & pour in roofing tar. From the inside, where the tar is starting to ooze in, stick a little FG insulation on to form a scab.
Of course, you have already corrected the exterior grade, gutters etc., right?
Good luck with your old house!
Hydraulic cement sets up in fifteen minutes. You'd never be able to have enpough working time for a job like this.
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Hydraulic cement is fine for spot-filling holes but is not a pointing mortar. Plus, it would cost you a small fortune. Pointing all properly is the right thing to do. I suspect that *most* of the problems are outside.
Jeff
You are getting some definitions for pointing mortars which I do not recognise.
Go to http://www.stastier.co.uk and research their NHL5 lime and consider if that will work. this is a natural hydraulic lime. Are the ones referred to in the answers to your enquiry synthetic mortars? The NHL5, if mixed in the right proportions with sharp sand will produce a good workable mortar which will be strong within a few days.
You won't be able to keep water our by patching the inside of the wall. Something has to be done with the outside of the wall by improving the drainage or pointing.
Don't use any synthetic stuff on these old structures, it only makes for more trouble in the future.
Hello all,
I have a similar problem, 1871 stone limestone house in southern ontario. We were thinking of excavating around the outside, placing a plywood form and pouring a 4inch thick exterior wall against the old stone wall. we would clean out the dirt ect on the stone wall first.
Thoughts? Comments?
This, in my mind, would be better than trying to seal the stonework from the inside but watch the mortar you use. Use of a hard portland cement might damage the limestone. It is too hard for most stonework and hastens its demise. Take advice from local masons who have repaired similar stonework.
The St Astier website I mentioned (http://www.stastier.co.uk) will have details of their NHL5 lime which would be ideal for work below ground. Try also the site for Virginia Limeworks, they are a bit nearer home and are very approachable. I am sure they would be happy to advise.
Drystone,
I don't know much in this area, but I agree with you. Old stones need soft mortar, as they originally had, or they could fracture or be moved. A good reference is "The Old House Journal Guide to Restoration," which I have in my library and which should be available in good public libraries (otherwise mine is for sale at a very high price). It describes this problem and also how to do parging for the outside treatment.
See attachment. Worked at my house.
Jeff
That's exactly what I was thinking of. How thick is the pour and what material did you use? Mortar with lime, concrete, grout?
Did you install a weeping drain at bottom?
4" - 8" of concrete, reinforced where necessary.
Yes to foundation drainage.
Jeff
Hey, that was my plan as well. Great minds I guess. How long ago did you pour it? Any problems so far?
October ... we are still under construction. No problems.
Original stone was likely laid with little or no excavation beyond the exterior wall line - thus stone was piled 'against grade'
See photo ;o)
Jeff
I have an 1850 limestone in eastern Ontario. I was too thinking about excavating and doing something similar to waht you have discussed to keep the basement a little dryer - until I read a recent article in Edifice Magazine. It's a small Canadian magazine with great technical advice on practical living in old Canadian houses - if you aren't a subscriber you should - it's based in Brantford Ontario (see oldhome.ca)
Long story short the suggestion is that these stone foundations are at extreme risk of catastrophic failure once the ground is excavated away from it. Stands to my reasoning and is a risk I am not willing to take. I'm working outside on diversion tactics and a sump system inside to deal with the balance.
Food for thought....
Edited 2/26/2007 9:51 pm ET by SMSHARP
I did that around my entire house (circa 1680...see website).Was the first thing I did when i moved here.
I dug a trench around the entire house right down to the footing (if you wanna call it that). Its a rubble rock foundation. I made and installed forms and braced them against the dirt. The reason I needed forms was because I had to get into the trench to dig and the trench would take up too much concrete if I filled the whole thing. As it was I probably have a 12" wall up against the rubble rock foundation.
I power washed the foundation REALLYYYYYYYYYY carefully to wash a lot of the dirt out in order to allow the new cement to make its way into the rocks.
When the concrete truck came I told the driver to be sure the mix wasn't too wet and to pour it slowwwwwwwwww....so what does the idiot do...uh huh...pulls the lever and the cement comes flying down the shoot and blows out a wall instantly...I FREAKED!!!! I ran intot he basement and it had blown a new washer and dryer I had down there clear accross the basement in that room and started flooding the basement w/concrete. We ran down there with metal rakes and spread out the concrete really quickly after pulling the washer and dryer out and hosing it off (don't ask). So what was once was a dirt floor is now concrete (lemon into lemonade)floor. I threw a piece of 3/4" CDX plywood over the giant hole in the wall and we started pouring again...SLOWLY this time. It worked out great after that...after I almost killed the operator...grrrrr. Andddddddd I even had the wall braced from inside.
Turns out one of our fellow Breaktimers was here visiting me that morning (alias) and he ran down and helped level out the cement into whats now my new concrete basement floor...
Hmmmmmm...Sounds like an article for the last page of FHB doesn't it?
LOL
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFexyK8J1Iw
http://WWW.CLIFFORDRENOVATIONS.COM
Good story! Fortunately we didn't have so much excitement with concrete ;o)Jeff
The material you poured in, what is it, concrete? Or a custom mix? As for a drain, are you talking about perforated pipe around the perimeter?
3,000 # standard concrete. Here's what it looked like after stripping the forms. Will face into a crawl space so not visually important.
You can see a footing 'toe' that we added since the stone wall had none.
Foundation drainage - 4" perf pipe in 3/4" clean stone wrapped in filter fabric.
Jeff
Edited 2/27/2007 12:03 am ET by Jeff_Clarke
Thank you! The "toe" you are referring to, the part of the foundation that jogs out? Or the very bottom?
It's the very bottom projection. The two pilasters support flitch plate beams for the first floor plus steel columns for the 2nd floor.
Jeff
The foundations in my neighbourhood are made of irregular (i.e. little or no dressing) fieldstone that in my explorations uses dirt as mortar within the wall and a cement mortar on the joints on the surface. If you have a similar situation with your limestone and clean out the dirt too aggressively you could quickly find stones in your foundation falling out. Be careful.