Hurricane water damage to Basement Shop

[Sam Puhalovich]

This is a 'workshop' problem that I'm hoping will get more responses on this site.
I built a two level house in central Texas in 2004. The front of the house living area is 4' above ground level and the ''basement' is a walk-out at the rear. The house seemed rock-steady until 2011 (7 years) without any noticeable settling. That changed with the drought of 2011 and in the spring of 2012 I had the first water intrusion along the front side where the cement floor comes to the blocks. My first attempt to seal the corners was using UGL Drylok. It lasted awhile then failed ... tried that several times. In March last year I 'discovered' the rubberized Rustoleum LeakSeal: using a angle grinder with a wire wheel ... I cleaned-out the 82 lineal feet of being affected. I applied 2 coats of the LeakSeal Basement and Masonary Waterproofer to the first block ... then 2 coats of rubberized LeakSeal. Since I had everything cleared-away from the walls ... I decide to paint the entire walls and applied 2 coats of Vinyl Block Filler followed by 2 coats of Semi Gloss Enamel. The treatment needed touch-up in a few spots and for 15 months seemed to hold-up. That all changed with Hurricane Harvey and the 18.5" of rain that dropped over a 42 hour period. One spot started to leak after the first 4" fell and progressively got worse over a 6 hour period. After that, more-and-more spots started to fail, the worst being along the garage walls. 2017BmntLeak7.JPG The rubberized material failed at the corner junction. I am ready to re-do the 'fix' and I am hoping that somebody has a better recipe then what I have used.

[Peter Aeschliman]

Hi Sam,

Sorry for your troubles.

When researching how to keep my basement shop dry, I learned that just about any product that that is applied to the wall or floor that claims to keep water out is most likely snake oil (paints, caulks, etc), especially where the wall meets the footer or slab. They might work for water vapor, but the type of moisture you have will find its way in eventually.

The best solution, albeit extremely painful to do after construction, is a french drain around the outside of the house at the same level as the footer of your foundation. The second best solution is to install a french drain on the inside of the foundation leading to a sump pit and sump pump. You'll want to use a product like Gator Guard, which is an L-shaped dimpled plastic that sits on top of the footer and directs water that seeps through the cold joint between the footer and the wall down to your drain tile. This is not a fun project- it involves busting up the concrete slab along the perimeter of the basement, digging out a trench, digging out a pit for a sump pit, pouring in new concrete over the trench, etc. Lots of resources online to explain how to do it.

I went for the interior drain and sump pump. I went from a pretty darn wet basement (seattle) to a totally dry basement after I did this. It made a world of difference.

Again, sorry for your troubles and sorry I don't have an easier solution to propose. But as you're learning, you should be very skeptical of any paints or caulks that claim to fix this issue.

[Wayne Lomman]

What Peter says about covers it. I would only add that coating type membranes work if applied so that the coating is compressed against the substrate which in your case means exposing the foundations and coating the outside. Cheers

[Sam Puhalovich]

Peter: thank you for your very helpful response. I was hoping that someone who successfully solved the same problem would respond.
Wayne: thank you for the confirmation.
I couldn't find a L-shaped anything on the Gator Guard web-site ... I think that you meant Gutter Guard. That brings-up a bunch of stuff.
The garage sticks out on the front of the house. My dilemma is that I would have to tunnel under it's slab to put a french drain along that area. I'll, no doubt, have to do the inside drain and sump pump variation.

[Peter Aeschliman]

Sorry Sam, no idea where I came up with Gator Guard. Brain fart.

I meant Catcus Board:

https://www.cactusboard.com/

Good luck!

[Curt Harms]

We have an interior drain system similar to what Peter describes. It was put in place when the basement slab was poured. We also had the exterior foundation walls "double parged" (2 layers of waterproofing material - asphalt? applied)We had one storm where we got 15" of rain in less than 24 hours. The sump pump seldom shut off during those hours but not one drop in the basement.

[Charles Lent]

The ground around newly constructed homes slopes away from the foundation, but over time, the dirt that had been back filled after the foundation was built, settles and frequently settles enough that it no longer slopes away from the foundation, but now slopes toward it. Any heavy rain will run up against the foundation wall and eventually work it's way through the wall. Homes built to code since the 1950's are required to have a perimeter drain at the footing level to remove this water, but frequently it's outlet gets plugged by landscaping changes. If no lower exit for this drain exists, frequently a sump and automatic electric pump are employed to pump this drain water to an acceptable location away from the home.

The first thing that you should do is to take a walk around your home to see if this or other areas near the foundation have settled, and fill in any of these areas until they do slope away, but not so high that they are above the concrete foundation. A long level helps determine this accurately. The ground should slope away from the foundation for a minimum of 6' and the rise should be a minimum of about 4" over this 6' distance. More is better. If you can't do this by filling in, you will need to lowar the area away from the foundation so the ground slopes away. You should also put your raincoat and boots on during a heavy rain and go out to inspect where the rain water is running on your property. If large amounts are flowing off a hill and headed toward your home, consider adding a shallow gutter or swail (a shallow dip in the lawn) to redirect as much of this runoff as possible away from your home or business. It's amazing how much water will follow one of these just a few inches deep. Most wet basements can again be dry if the above problems are corrected.

Charley

[Peter Aeschliman]

Charley is absolutely right, and my advice should've started there. Simplest solutions first! Make sure your downspouts direct water far away from your house. Put in dry wells if necessary. And of course the slope.

I was able to solve two areas of water intrusion by adding extensions to two downspouts. But my worst area still leaked afterwards, so a drain system and sump pump were the only complete cure. The good news for me was that I only had to add a drain to two of my four basement walls because the downspouts solved some of the problem.

[lee cox]

I wonder if a French drain along the outside would help. If nothing else it would build up the dirt to drain away from the house. If you have clay soil it will hold water.

[Sam Puhalovich]

Thank you all for the 'prompts'. The soil is clay-based and the only suspect spot is a 6' long one that has leveled-off that had once-been sloped. While strongly considering that I would install a interior french drain as Peter suggested, I came across 2 sites selling a similar product that looked like baseboard and is attached to the floor only,
http://waterproof.com/
This meant that I would drill holes in the blocks and actually 'invite' the water to come in to be driven-out by a pump. It is a less costly solution, but, wholly dependent on NOT having a power-outage. I decided after much soul-searching that the best solution ... albeit most expensive ... is to prevent the water from coming-in by giving it a place to go ... an exterior french drain.

[Charles Lent]

They make battery powered sump pumps that use car batteries for power. You could parallel connect several and keep them charged with a battery maintenance charger, then hop that the power comes back before the batteries are dead. If I was in an area with frequent power loss, I would install a regualr sump pump in addition to the battery operated one with it's float switch set a bit lower so it would run until it had no power, then the battery operated pump would take over until power came back on. Be sure to install check valves on the pump outlets if they will share an outlet line.

Charley

[John TenEyck]

If you solve the drainage outside you won't have to deal with water on the inside. I live with a slope that brought water against one wall of my house. The interior drains/sump worked but the sump pump would run nearly non stop in heavy rains. Paint on the walls blistered. I had two French drains installed across the slope, one near the house, the other in a low spot further up the slope, that drain to an adjacent sale. Now the sump hardly ever runs and the wall paint is fine.

John

[Alan Lightstone]

They make battery powered sump pumps that use car batteries for power. You could parallel connect several and keep them charged with a battery maintenance charger, then hop that the power comes back before the batteries are dead. If I was in an area with frequent power loss, I would install a regualr sump pump in addition to the battery operated one with it's float switch set a bit lower so it would run until it had no power, then the battery operated pump would take over until power came back on. Be sure to install check valves on the pump outlets if they will share an outlet line.

Charley

I use one of those battery powered sump pumps to keep circulation going in my 1000 gallon fish tank during a power outage. Sadly, it may get use today. They are very inexpensive - I get mine from West Marine (I think they call them marine bilge pumps). Then hook it up to a deep discharge or preferably AGM gel battery with a GOOD trickle charger. Those batteries are not cheap, but they are built very well, require no maintenance, and work great when you need them.

I can't imagine you would need much flow out of these. If a true sump pump is more appropriate, the AGM battery / good trickle charger is still good advice.

[Peter Aeschliman]

Hi Sam,

I think you made the right choice, although, yeah, that will be spendy. Do you plan to do it yourself, or hire out?

Also, I know you decided to go another route, but to be sure, the system you linked to is still intended to go under the slab, albeit on top of the footer. this will work just fine if your only seepage is from the cold joint between the block wall and the concrete footer. Cold joints are formed when concrete is poured in two stages. They pour your footer first, let it cure, and then pour the wall on top of it (or in your case, mortar the blocks on top of it). That seam is never water-tight from what I understand.

If you also have seepage caused by water coming up from UNDERNEATH the footer, then you really need your french drain to be at the same level as the footer rather than on top of it. And this is when you'd need a perforated pipe AND the cactus board (and of course you'd still need to drill holes behind the cactus board to let the water out of the blocks). I figure if you were to go to the length of busting up your concrete and drilling holes in the blocks to let the water out, you might as well go to the extra step of digging out the trench and putting in some gravel and landscape cloth.

As for the exterior drain, I have no experience with this. But the best advice I can give is to do tons of research on best practices. If you hire it out, go over every detail with the contractor, and don't let them backfill it until you've been able to inspect the installation. It needs to be right next to the footer, with landscape fabric in the trench, followed by WASHED gravel (not dirty stuff, the dirt could get into your drain tile and clog it up prematurely), tamped to avoid settling, with a proper slope the entire length of the drain system, leading to a place that will drain away from the house or into a dry well. I would also recommend having them install a few access points in your garden beds so that you can stick a hose down into it and jet it out to make sure it doesn't get clogged.

Good luck my friend- this is a big project!!

[Peter Aeschliman]

Sorry, one more thing and I'll shut up.

This is the sump pump setup I used:

https://www.amazon.com/WSS30V-Pre-As...p+with+battery

It has a 120 volt pump and a backup 12 volt pump on a battery. It has an alarm to alert you of poweroutages, which can often come with storm. It has worked awesome for me so far, but it wasn't the cheapest option out there.