When it rains heavy, and it has been doing all year in GA (2003), the unfinished half of our basement (a dirt crawl space, basically), floods with water. The first time, it took many hours with a little sump-pump to drain out the water, and all of the plastic sheeting had to be removed, as it was coated in silt-like mud.
The roles of plastic looked very much like we were trying to dispose of a body - great way to say "Howdy and Hi" to the new neighbors, eh?
Part of the flooding was due to the broken sewer line, and we thought that once that was fixed, all would be well. I even used a good 80lbs of concrete to seal up the entrance way for the sewer pipe.
Well, while in California for work I rec'd a frantic call from Dotty about the basement flooding. Instead of one corner flooding up, the unfinished half of the basement was a few inches away from spilling over into the finished half. We're talking about about 25'x30'x1.5' of water - not trivial.
So - I find a major fault in the foundation wall - a fault, that I can fix. (No really.) Here's the show-n-tell part of the story:
A house of thirty years suffers a bit of settling.
In this case a poorly set, half cinder block has twisted, and the surrounding mortar has failed. When it rains water and mud flow from the hole underneath like a fire hose.
So begins the dig on the outside to do a proper repair from
both sides of the cinder block, and to seal the outside from
future leaks.
Ta-Da! Hard to tell, but that's a little less than five feet deep.
There's the culprint from the outside. Once the mud was washed
out, I was able to reach my hand straight through the wall. Whoever
laid this foundation didn't know how to deal with a change in grade.
So - I removed the cinder block, clean out the hole underneath, strategically place new concrete based bricks, and proceed to fill in the form with about 80lbs worth of concrete, which I would then seal with tar on the outside.
The concrete dries - it looks great, so I decide to give it a test. I fill the outside ditch in with a few feet of water.
Slinking my way back through the aptly named crawl space, I inspect my handiwork - there's the slightest of water trickling through, nothing a little stategically placed tar won't fix. Hoorah! But wait.. why do I hear water?
To the right a good six feet away is the corner of the foundation, and a good ten more feet to the right of that is a virtual fountain of water shooting out of the wall! Yes, the water had traveled a good sixteen feet through little animal tunnels along the ouside of the foundation, and was now literally pouring into the basement.
I think I invented a few new curse words within that moment, and certainly touched down on all the favorites. Alas - I will not accept defeat!
Waterproofing the Leaking Foundation from Hell!