Hey guys,

Here in southern California we don’t do many basements and I don’t have a lot of experience with retaining walls. I’ve been doing some work on a set of townhouses recently that were originally built in the 1980’s. There are 4 side by side, each one is 3 stories high. They have a retaining wall in front of the stairs which lead to subterranean parking. It looks like a concrete retaining wall that had stucco applied over it. The stucco is peeling and it sure looks like water is trying to make its way out of the bottom. Excavating, waterproofing, and creating drainage would be a lot of work for something that is essentially just an eyesore for these guys. I don’t know a whole lot about concrete, but my very basic understanding is that concrete subject to continuous moisture like this can create issues over time, whereas the same is not really true for CMU. Is this going to become more than just an eyesore over time? What kind of options are there for dealing with this? I have some ideas but I figured I should keep my ears open and my mouth closed until those with more experience have weighed in.

The subterranean parking garage walls (block) are showing a lot of efflorescence. There are areas which are up against soil, so I’m not really surprised, but I’m seeing it in places where there isn’t anything on the other side of those walls. Would that efflorescence be coming from moisture which is just traveling through that block wall from the areas that are up against soil? The garage looks kind of like a CSI crime scene and they’d like to do something about it. Since it is block, I’m under the impression that the moisture isn’t a huge problem, but I’m not sure what can be done cosmetically that won’t just lead to more issues.

I’ve attached pictures. Very appreciative of any wisdom you guys can share, I’m interested to learn. Thanks