Client has a small,(1/32″ wide x 4′ long) settling crack in the poured foundation wall, below grade. When it has been raining for a few days, it does pizz out the towards the bottom of the crack, so there is a hydraulic head to contend with, not just cosmetic.
Plan is to widen it a bit with a grinder then smear in epoxy anchoring cement. Think it will work? if not, then what. Thanks.
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Replies
My go to would be hydraulic cement. You can use it even if water is coming through the crack. Epoxy would probably work though.
Hydraulic works better, because it expands as it kicks, which fills and presses itself against the sides of the crack, eliminating the voids water can pass though. Epoxy is more of a chemical bond tha will probably take, IF the surfaces it it applied to are just right, but water can still blow it off from behind.
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If I were the client I'd be royally pissed that the foundation wasn't properly tiled.
How do you know it wasn't?
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The water is a clue.
What is wanted is not the will to believe, but the will to find out, which is the exact opposite. --Bertrand Russell
Depending on the material used to seal it, the crack would cause it to fail...not necessarily done incorrectly to begin with.
I would go hydraulic as well for the previously mentioned reasons, and because I've used it to parge snap-ties ( and before that, pull rods) and have never seen it fail in an appplication such as yours. Assuming of course that the foundation is experiencing the typical curing/shrinkage cracks with little or no displacement, and not " wow, should I not have poured my 8' wall on peat moss ?" cracks.
Bing
But sealing the crack is pointless. Other cracks will appear in short order.
What is wanted is not the will to believe, but the will to find out, which is the exact opposite. --Bertrand Russell
That depends entirely on what caused the first one.
I've seen cracks in foundations that I've framed houses on that were 1/8 or so wide, without displacement of the walls. These were 12" walls on a footing, with two rows of re-bar in the footing and two in the wall. The concrete doesn't necessarily crack because of settling or a soil condition, ( in my experience, it rarely does ) often it's a result of the conc being poured too wet on a long pull or too hot conc right out of the truck. Either way, I've seen numerous cracks that were visible shortly after a pour that never got any worse, and never had more cracks appear.....
The fact that there is water breaching the wall would be cause for a little more concern, but again, if the top of the wall is still straight and the face isn't stepped, my opinion would be that it's a shrinkage crack. Obviously I'm just spitballin here, without seeig it or the conditions around it.........
Bing
With some very special case exceptions, all concrete cracks.
What is wanted is not the will to believe, but the will to find out, which is the exact opposite. --Bertrand Russell
Rare to see a statement that none can argue!
"With some very special case exceptions, all concrete cracks."Whether "all" or "some," it does happen. Given that, what's the consensus on using peel/stick membrane over a new foundation. The claims are ability to bridge 1/16" cracks, last life of foundation, etc. The installation pics always look neat. Particularly if this were to be covered with exterior foam insulation (covered above grade, of course), it would seem to be a route to an always-dry basement. But then there's actual practice. Opinions?
Edited 5/28/2008 8:49 am ET by DickRussell
There are several different "drainage plane systems".BossHogg used a a dippled plastic on his spec house.In general I think that they are a good idea. The idea is that it makes it easier for the water to drain down to the footer drain rather than against the foundation wall..
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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.
Simpson makes an epoxy injection system that I am going to try on Friday. Hydraulic cement would probably work, but just in cas id rather be safe. I'll post how it goes...
I'm not overly impressed with it. You gotta be precise on the procedure. I googled "epoxy injection" to learn more about how to do it.
But it still dribbled out in small cracks I didn't see. It's almost best to do some cracks in steps over several days unless one uses those pump based systems. Technique is big.
So I used the Simpson Crack-Pac epoxy system. You get part A and B epoxy paste in jars, nipples to epoxy to the wall, 2 caulk gun size tubes of resin and 2 spouts with hardener that attach to the resin tubes. Cleaned and blew out the crack, epoxied the nipples every 8 inches on the crack, and pasted over the rest of the crack. Later in the day, mixed the tubes. You screw on the spout containing the liquid hardener to the resin containing tube, turn the valve and the hardener drains into it. Shake for a few minutes, then use the supplied flex tube to pump the epoxy in the nipples, starting at the bottom. It is supposed to fill the crack from the bottom up, which is pretty much what happened - except I suspect some of it drain through the wall to the fill. Only snag was I ran out of epoxy on Friday afternoon and couldn't get any till today to finish. That And I got a drop of the hardener in my eye (OUCH).
That is much like the high pressure injection system I had done. I think if you pumped enough epoxy in from the bottom up, you likely got it fixed. Unless there was a large void somewhere behind the wall in line with the crack, the soil itself acts as a backer for the epoxy.
Let us know if it worked.
He has surface water weeping down the exterior of the wall and seeping in the crack before it ever gets to the perimieter drain And IIRC, there was no indication that this is a new house, so the drain could have been installed very well a hundred years ago and simply goit silted in. no need for wasting all that anger energy over something unwarranted like that. It happens. That's life. Get over it.
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If it were a hundred year old house he wouldn't be worried about a single crack.
What is wanted is not the will to believe, but the will to find out, which is the exact opposite. --Bertrand Russell
I would use injected epoxy or ureathane.
Both are used. But I don't remember which is recommended for this kind of problem.
http://www.concretenetwork.com/concrete/crack_injection/
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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.
Injected epoxy would be best because it is formulated for this.But not anchor epoxy smeared on the surface like you was thinking. That would just make doing the right thing harder.
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I had that done on my former house and agian on a customers home.
High pressure epoxy injection is kind of neat to watch. For a 9" wall they epoxy a small straw into the crack evry 8" from the floor up the wall. They then surface seal the crack with a layer of epoxy (rapid set), and start injecting into the floor level straw with about 3,000 psi pressure. When the liquid starts to weep out of the next straw up the crack, they move up to it and repeat the process untill they get just beloww grade level. They then clip the injection straws and fast set epoxy over the ends,
The outfit that did both of them have the HO a transferrable life time warrenty. For the $300 to $500 investment per crack it was smart money spent.
I have done excavation and patching with hydrulic cement as well as used some of the other methods that have hit the market over the years, and would never give more than a normal year warrenty on any of them. The high pressure epoxy injection beats them all IMO.
I'm also thinking that my concrete equipment supply house had some type on caulk gun injectable system with the injection tubes and similar procedure for use. Might be something the OP would be interested in.
How old is this foundation?
If there is movement going on anythign done from the inside will be temporary at best. You need to determine what's causing it to crack in the first place. Also, it shoud be sealed from the outside. Nobody ever want's to face having to dig up the outside, but it's the only sure way to fix a foundation leak.
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That is as true as the fact that all concrete cracks.
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foundation might be 5 years old... just a settling or shrinkage crack. Only leaks when it has been raining for a few days. Crack is on a common wall of a townhouse, but at the front, where their house is staggered 3 feet out from the neighbors. I'm sure gutters contribute to it, but this is a home inspection repair, so I am only to address the crack, not the water source.
>>Client has a small,(1/32" wide x 4' long) settling crack in the poured foundation wall
Settling? He's got a big problem with likely broken footers to consider
Shrinkage?
NBD There are epoxy systems to fill it.
First, though, make sure the house has 10' downspout extensions (spanning well past the overdig area) and positive grading.
There really shouldn't be that mush H2O around the foundation to build up significant hydraulic head.
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Bill H and Piffin are 100% right.
Everybody elses opinion is in my opinion just opinion. (get that one)
Gotta inject it if you want it to be resolved. They also warrant the work for a long time.
Carter Custom Coatings in Middletown Delaware area comes to Baltimore, I think.
I use them and they are great.
Dont use them very often but probably once a year.
Concrete does 2 things over time. 1. Gets harder and harder
2. Cracks
I would also check for water sources from the exterior and make sure grade slopes away, gutters extend out, etc.