Water Through New Foundation After Heavy Rains

[Paul Simmel]

In Illinois. Heaviest rains I have ever seen here… ever, in Jan!

A long, long, long story short: water leaking through new foundation where 1” copper water main comes through full basement wall (approximately 24” above slab). Original hydraulic cement didn’t hold… cracked and chipping out a bit now from inside. Highly suspect tar on outside either not done or done inadequately.

Outside: Porch is on, grass planted. Excavation would be nearly impossible at this point.

Please help me figure a way to patch this from inside! Basement water-proofing Co.? Can the “hardened” hydraulic cement be carefully drilled through around the copper, through the wall, and injected with something that will expand/seal?

Water tables are high here. Again, long story. Thought this was solved in July.

I could really use some good news.

Thank you!

[Lee Schierer]

If this pipe comes through a wall under a porch, where is the water coming from? If the porch doesn't leak and the ground around th porch is sloped properly away from the foundation you shouldn't see much water against the wall. If the ground is still settling from the original construction then the water may be following the pipe back from some where in the yard.

Not to make you lose any sleep, but is there possibly a leak int he copper causing the problem?

[Chris Padilla]

Paul,

I can only say that the hydraulic cement is what I saw Tom Silva use on a foundation on "Ask This Old House" to seal a leaky foundation. Other than that, I'm just blowing smoke below....

You may well need to drill/chisel out some space around the pipe and then repack it with the cement. Obviously not all of the leak was sealed the first time this repair was attempted so you may need to actually make the problem worse before you can make it better.

It can certainly be nerve-racking working around the main water feed into your house so take it slow and easy chipping/drilling out around the 1" copper pipe. Hopefully it is at least Type L (which it should be) so it'll have a thicker wall than the Type M copper which was probably run through the rest of your house. The L will take a good couple of hits before it'll rupture on you so you've got a few lives there.

One other thought is that this could be the "100 year flood" that is testing your foundation and you may well never have such issues in the future.

If your house is new, do you have any warranties to cover such work?

Also, maybe try a different brand of hydraulic cement?

[Bob DiGiacomo]

I would wait for the rain to stop to be sure that the rain is the problem. Make sure you know the leak is not coming from above by the shut off valve or from condensation from a warm basement and a cold pipe. If the pipe is coming from the floor and you are sure that there is hydrostatic pressure causing the leak you are going to have chip away the concrete put some stone in the bottom of the hole and if possible run a drain line to a french drain. And finish off the the job with hydrostatic cement. Good luck.

[Paul Simmel]

Thanks thus far, guys.

The water tables are high here. We had more than 4” in less than a hour. It’s a long story… under certain circumstances it has happened before. But that doesn’t matter.

The main comes through the wall, not the floor. Roughly 5’ below grade.

>>> through the wall, and injected with something that will expand/seal?

(“through” meaning to the outside (where the backfill is)).

Or, an 8’ syringe plunged down along the outside of the wall to where the main enters, and sealant injected/pumped?

>>> It can certainly be nerve-racking working around the main water feed into your house

Absolutely a scary scenario, Chris.

[Bob DiGiacomo]

There is something called the miraflex system which is an injectable foam product that expands. I have used it with a builder to fix cracks in foundations that were letting water into basements. I don't think that you can get it at lowes or home depot but maybe on the Internet. It is a mixture of expandable foam and epoxy and it shoots out of a special caulk gun.

[Matthew Poeller]

I normally lurk and soak up information but this is something that I actually have experience with.

The water main adds a little bit of a twist to this but I will give you what I have done with success on leaky basement walls.

I have done this twice now with great success. Once in a place that I rented and now in my own house. I have a basement shop so it is imperative that is remain dry (in the rented place the leak wrecked a good amount of cherry).

If you can deal with it right now I suggest that you mark that area with a paint pen so you remember where it is when it dries. Hyd Cement is great but not fool proof. I found that because it has to be relatively dry to not wash away is does not always fill all of the voids. So if you mark the area and do it once it dries out you can mix you cement more wet get it in all the voids.

If you cannot deal with it, drill the area making somewhat of a dovetail. Chisel, angle grinder with masonry bit works too depending on what you are doing. Since it is active you have to mix the hyd cement relatively dry like the instructions say. Pack it into the area, and take a wet paint brush and feather it into the surrounding areas to fill the small voids where the new cement hits the old cement. Take a heat gun to it to speed up the drying and get a good skin on it so that it will not wash out. This will allow the inside (where it meets the active leak) a good long time to set up. When doing a larger area be careful with the heat gun as it will make it crack if you dry the outside too fast. If you need to you can take the paint brush too to it a couple more times to fill the voids.

I find hyd cement difficult and finicky to work with and if you have not worked with it before you may need to do it again. You may find it would be worth it just to call the pros, but I have done this with success and saved myself a small amount of money.

[Paul Simmel]

Thank you Bob and Matt.

Bob, I can’t get anything on Google for “miraflex”, unfortunately. What else might it be? Something like this is what I’m looking for.

Matt, I don’t think I could break/drill/grind out too much around the main. It’s 1” copper. There was a 2” hole formed when the walls were poured (through which the 1” main was installed). That’s a 10” wall.

The form for the 2” hole was a piece of corrugated plastic hose. I don’t know if the entire 10” depth was packed with hydraulic cement or not. I also don’t know how anyone could have ever removed the corrugated sleeve prior to packing the HC…

The question is, could the pressure of properly applied HC seal with the sleeve in there even if it were packed all the way through (full 10”). Question is would your recommendation work if I could only manage to get an inch or so of the old HC removed. I’m at a loss.

The sewer side, though larger in diameter, was formed the same way and it leaked like crazy. I had my excavator dig it up and tar the crud out of the outside. It has never leaked since. This is why I’m inquiring into something that could be inserted from inside, pumped through, and hopefully expand like crud between the backfill and foundation wall.

Even with the perfect product, I’d be very afraid to drill very close to the main itself. I’m really hoping someone has gone through something similar and found a solution. My chin is up. <smile>

[Bryan Berguson]

Paul,

I had water coming in my basement through the underground electric service! I packed as much HC in it as I could and I've never had another leak. I've used quite a bit of HC in other jobs and have always mixed it to a chocolate chip cookie dough consistency. Stiff but wet enough to be able to work it. You only have a couple of minutes to get it in place so have a plan. Use rubber gloves and pack it in tight with your fingers.

It's very possible that the real reason you have a leak is the foundation wasn't properly backfilled with gravel. Gravel allows the water to flow down to your perimeter drain and away from the house. Dirt catches the water and the water takes the path of least resistance - through holes in your foundation! Of course if the water table is that high this is all moot. But then, if the WT was that high I think you'd have a flood in your basement so it's probably the backfilling issue. Guess how I know this!

Bryan

[Joe Mioux]

If this is an isolated incident, you may never have the problem again.

I have seen some pretty strange things happen with foundations and water. Like water rushing through a whole from a rusted out steel pin that held the forms together. It was like a stream of pee (sorry for the description, but it is analagous) It happened one time.

In the house I am living in now, the previous owners noted two leaks that occured shortly after they built the house, since then no leaks. The house is 13 years old.

The Spring of 2006, we had a leak where the water line enters the house. The plumber used heavy wall blue PVC pipe (nothing wrong with the pipe except where it enters the building). The weight and years of settling from the backfill caused the pipe to kink and fail.

I had to dig down to the the water line entering the house and have the plastic pipe replaced with copper pipe. We used hydraulic cement on both sides of the foundation.

Digging down to the water line, is not a big deal, which can easily be done with shovels.

You really need to keep the water from entering into the foundation which means any patching should be done on the outside. You need to "dam" up the problem rather than applying a "band-aid" on the inside. Remember, any patches on the inside will only be as good as however far you dig and patch into the wall.

I have a few other stories with underground water lines and foundations. I have also used the B-Dry system at our old house and that worked great from keeping water from entering the house.

HTH
joe

[Kevin L. Pauba]

How new is the house? A nephew-in-law of mine had a similar problem on his new house and after several consultations with different "experts", it has been determined that the construction workers didn't properly backfill the water line (in addition to dirt, they threw concrete and bricks in there (to clean up the site) and didn't tamp properly). This left a path of least resistance for the water to follow during heavy rains (causing it to leak around the pipe and flood the basement).

After redoing the backfill he hasn't had a problem (even after subsequent heavy rains).

[Rob Russell]

>>> It can certainly be nerve-racking working around the main water feed into your house

Absolutely a scary scenario, Chris.

[THREADJACK]

Hah! You think working around a water line is scary, try digging around your live electrical service feed!

Before we did the addition on our house, I had our service upgraded from 100 to 200 amps. Northeast Utilities (NU) had to replace the meter as part of that, so the electrician had to put in a whole new meter pan. The meter pan is the base that the meter plugs into. When I called NU to find out if they had any requirements on the upgrade, they said they needed the existing "service laterals" (the buried conductors running from the power connection at the street up to the house) to be uncovered for 6 feet away from the house.

That meant I needed to dig, yep - with a shovel, around our hot service laterals. The trickiest part was that the conductors head straight down by the house for a bit and then take a bend to head out underground. You don't know where that is. I was digging on the sides of the service laterals and pulling the dirt away from them to be able to figure out where the conductors ran.

Oh boy - was that ever fun!

Rob

[/THREADJACK]

[Rob Russell]

I've used the hydraulic cement before. I'd actually suggest not making a dry mix but a wetter mix. It sounds to me like Paul will be doing this work after the actual leak has stopped anyway.

By using a wetter mix, so the HC is "creamy", you can pack it into the hole better and it will mold itself around the pipe better. If you try to use a dry mix, you'll end up with cracks inside that will leak.

HC dries very quickly. I was using the FastPlug stuff that the big box stores sell and in 2 minutes that goes from soupy/creamy to so stiff you can't trowel it.

I'd do a practice run. Nail a couple of pieces of scrap lumber together to make a square tube that's 3" x 3" or so on the inside. Mix up a small batch of the HC and fill in the end of the tube. Cut that off and try again. You'll get a good feel for how the HC works before you're working "live" around your water pipe.

I was using the HC to seal the seam between a poured basement floor and cinderblock wall at my Dad's cottage before the whole mess was painted with the DryLock concrete paint.

Mix the HC up on a piece of plywood that you're going to throw away afterwards. You will want to get a pointed trowel and a rectangular one.

Rob

[Charlie Schultz]

FWIW, this is from another forum I frequent:
http://www.mimf.com/cgi-bin/WebX?14@....4@.2cb66555/0

[Jason Garrett]

When our house was new water leaked in around our water line as well. The problem turned out to be where our line connected to the main by the street. Our line is in a sleeve which was was not properly sealed at the main, so water entered there and ran into our basement. The fix involved digging a hole in our front yard by the sidewalk instead of in the back yard by the house.