Hi All,

I purchased a home in 2020 in upstate NY in western Sullivan County in the Catskills and have been going back and forth for years now on how to patch/repair a foundation. Short version – after buying the house, I demoed some useless wire mesh, plywood and parge coat in the basement to reveal 2 foundation walls with lots of crumbling. It looks to be due to water damage and old age (house was built in 1920). The foundation is built with what they call around here as Farmer’s Concrete, large and medium stones and some sort of concrete mortar that they piled into a form. My hope is that I could slowly patch up the walls over time, there doesn’t seem to be any structural issues (at least not yet) and this was my first step in attempting to seal up a wet basement. The question is: what should I patch with, mortar, concrete, something else? I thought of building forms and adding an inch more of material to the walls to just help it stay standing and/or just patch it over time with some elbow grease. Some places only need an inch or so bring it back in line with rest of the wall but some areas need maybe four inches where large stones have fallen out. Our modest income prevents fully re-pouring a new foundation so I’m hoping there is a solution to last as long as I do. I’m attaching some pictures below. The old mortar is definitely pretty soft but mostly intact and I’m brushing out the areas that are easily crumbling. Any help or a link to an appropriate article would be appreciated

Matthew
from North Branch, NY