Masonry Product to Seal Wet Shale Basement Wall
glynnbebee
| Posted in Construction Techniques on
I’m working on a house with a wet basement and don’t know what masonry product and/or waterproofing methods to use. The house is cut into a shale rock hill and each layer between the sedimentary rock is leaking water. It is leaking through fast enough to create multiple constant drips all along the wall.
I’d like to apply a surface veneer of some masonry product but do not know what products work best on such an active water flow. I imagine some heavily modified (acrylic) product? Any product names that you can suggest will be appreciated…
Replies
Help me out here.......
The shale hill is part of the foundation?
Yes, foundation is dug out of a shale formation
Yes, the area around here has rock close to the surface. It's mainly sedimentary rock. They dug the back foundation wall into the hill, exposing a few hundred horizontal layers between the rocks, many of which have water draining through. It's not uncommon since many houses of the time considered internal cisterns to be a plus.
I've had initial success with QuickWall, fortified with the acrylic additive. It sticks ok to the rock face even though it is so wet and continually draining. I guess I'm wondering if other specific products exist that do better to stick to and seal a very wet (water trickling through contantly) wall?
The only thing that's really going to work is to build a drain wall.
I agree with DanH
The only way to stop this is to intercept it before it gets to the basement.
Would it be possible to install a cutoff trench/french drain uphill from teh foundation to intercept the water and drain it somewhere else?
Support the house above, rent a jackhammer, and move that face back 16" or so.
Provide drainage system to give that ater someplace to go.
Then pour foundation wall
In underpinning applications where the joint b/t the old and new isn't great I've used drainage board that allows the water to drain down to interior perimeter drains. Then just build the 2x wall offset from the drainage board.
I think there was either a JLC or FHB article about an old mill that had a basement in a hill that had water constantly running down the hillside wall they did something similar and had the water run under the floor and out the other side.
Hydralic cement is what is typically used in wet wall situations. I am not sure if that would work well for you or not.