My foundation isn't much of one lately....

[Tinkerin_wit_tools]

I live in the north Georgia area and was one that even though the outside of my house wasn't recently flooded, the inside was. During the torrential downpours of last week, of course I didn't notice anything in the nearly finished part of my basement, but when I went in there a day ago....bam! Treadmill is dead and saw that the carpet was soaked. Mold was growing up the side of the walls, only about two inches, thank goodness, but still a bad thing. I have dug around the outside of the area and sandbagged it temporarily until I have some cash to go out and get supplies to fix it soon. There are gaps in between the concrete bricks that the mortar has disappated and crumbled away. I see that quickcrete has a formula that works in the cold weather, so I am not worried, as long as it doesn't rain and it will dry. My question is this: how do I get the mixed mortar into these gaps to plug them up to begin with??? I assume that I could do it like cake decorators do, by putting it into a bag and just squeezing it out into the cracks....Any ideas? All are welcome and appreciated.

[pushkins]

Your right a cake bag is a good method, you can get the bags at Lowe's/home depot for around $6.00.
If you have the wall open you might be better off applying a product called "quickwall" (available at Lowe's and Home Depot), this product gets trowelled on over the entire surface after it dries you can coat the wall with a water proofing product that is asphalt based.

[Tinkerin_wit_tools]

Your right a cake bag is a good method, you can get the bags at Lowe's/home depot for around $6.00.
If you have the wall open you might be better off applying a product called "quickwall" (available at Lowe's and Home Depot), this product gets trowelled on over the entire surface after it dries you can coat the wall with a water proofing product that is asphalt based.

I have finally gotten some time to go rooting around in the basement and what I found was what you see below. There is one area that I have already known about and that the standing water from outside just pours in and it cracked the blocks that you see in the pics. Outside this area is a concrete driveway that is ground level and the crack going down the side of the blocks is below that. Seems like I can only seal it from the inside and chisel away at the seam that meets the foundation from the outside and seal that area. It comes along inside and ended up splitting the slab as you see in the other pics, and would have to repair that too. The one that dumbfounds me is the one that is in the crawlspace. It has no blocks that go all the way down into the ground, because I assume they did this as the home is on a slope. As you can see on the right side of it, there is just lots of hard rock and dirt. I don't have any ideas on how to seal this area at all and the gap between the concrete block and the rock below it is what caused my basement to flood. If you could throw your two cents in, would be awesome...

[pushkins]

You need to stop the water getting between the concrete driveway and the house foundation, you can seal this area (after cleaning out any loose stuff) with a flexible caulk, you could also use the mortar repair caulk as it stays permanently flexible and will adhere to both the driveway and the block foundation as well as form a water barrier.
As for the step foundation there is almost nothing you can do on the inside to "seal" this area, your best solution is to regrade the exterior so that water flows away from this wall (as all grading should be around a house)
Trying to seal the inside of the foundation is going to be a "chase ya tail" experience, you will seal one area and the moisture will come out of another, crawlspace walls are simply not made to retain water, your only solution is drainage away from the walls.
On another note that drain pipe really needs a pipe hanger holding it, not the pieces of brick.

[Tinkerin_wit_tools]

You need to stop the water getting between the concrete driveway and the house foundation, you can seal this area (after cleaning out any loose stuff) with a flexible caulk, you could also use the mortar repair caulk as it stays permanently flexible and will adhere to both the driveway and the block foundation as well as form a water barrier.
As for the step foundation there is almost nothing you can do on the inside to "seal" this area, your best solution is to regrade the exterior so that water flows away from this wall (as all grading should be around a house)
Trying to seal the inside of the foundation is going to be a "chase ya tail" experience, you will seal one area and the moisture will come out of another, crawlspace walls are simply not made to retain water, your only solution is drainage away from the walls.
On another note that drain pipe really needs a pipe hanger holding it, not the pieces of brick.

Well, this last weekend was spent doing as much as I could with the foundation. Only about a third is completed, yet I still have a question or two. I read the bag of quikwall of the curing process and it said that you need to spray with water for the next few days. Well, since I finished late on Sunday, the rest of the weather forecast this week is filled with rain. I don't know if this is a good or bad thing, yet some of the wall is moist. I can't tell if this is from the rain, or it creeping up the foundation from the puddles at the bottom. I did the mortar patch, then applied the quikwall as prescribed. I don't know if this is normal, but it looks more like stucco than anything else. Not an issue, because in the future, my wife and I wanted to put decorator stones along the foundation to make the house look nicer. As long as it repels the water!!! If you have time, can you let me know if I did alright?? Thanks. You sure are a valuable asset to us do it yourselfers!

[Tinkerin_wit_tools]

Well, this last weekend was spent doing as much as I could with the foundation. Only about a third is completed, yet I still have a question or two. I read the bag of quikwall of the curing process and it said that you need to spray with water for the next few days. Well, since I finished late on Sunday, the rest of the weather forecast this week is filled with rain. I don't know if this is a good or bad thing, yet some of the wall is moist. I can't tell if this is from the rain, or it creeping up the foundation from the puddles at the bottom. I did the mortar patch, then applied the quikwall as prescribed. I don't know if this is normal, but it looks more like stucco than anything else. Not an issue, because in the future, my wife and I wanted to put decorator stones along the foundation to make the house look nicer. As long as it repels the water!!! If you have time, can you let me know if I did alright?? Thanks. You sure are a valuable asset to us do it yourselfers!

Sorry, forgot to ask one more thing>
My wife brought up a good point. Since we are patching the foundation, and it is ALOT of work, when it comes to the regrading and putting in a french drain, why not put a rain barrel down instead?? I know this will save lots of digging and we are doing plenty now. We are both just shot physically from all the weekend work, so I respect all that do this for a living............

[pushkins]

A rain barrel is a great idea to collect rain water from downspouts and will help a little (a very little), the grading issue is to stop ground water running towards the foundations, this ground water is also the water that falls with rain around the perimeter of the home as well as any water that is collecting and running towards the foundation. By grading the slope of land away from the home this water cannot collect at the foundation and then follow the brick line down until it finds an easy way through the bricks/mortar, which is what is happening right now. The grade needs only be around 1/4" drop/foot away from the home (the more the better) and should be at least extend two feet out from the home.
The thing to remember is water doesn't "want" to be trapped in soil so as it soaks into the ground around your home with bad grading it makes it's way to the area between soil and brick wall, once here pressure forces it into small cracks in bricks or mortar ....there's your leak. No matter of sealing the interior bricks will alleviate this problem unless you address the grading issue.....sorry

As for the quick wall, it sounds like you did the job right, it goes on like plaster and you simply trowel it out to an acceptable finish, the problem still is though, the quick wall will not seal 100% the joint between foundation and brick and definitely not between any dirt and cement/brick/concrete. The wetting down of the quickwall is to help stop the wall drying out too fast, if it sits in water it will absorb moisture (wicking).

[Tinkerin_wit_tools]

A rain barrel is a great idea to collect rain water from downspouts and will help a little (a very little), the grading issue is to stop ground water running towards the foundations, this ground water is also the water that falls with rain around the perimeter of the home as well as any water that is collecting and running towards the foundation. By grading the slope of land away from the home this water cannot collect at the foundation and then follow the brick line down until it finds an easy way through the bricks/mortar, which is what is happening right now. The grade needs only be around 1/4" drop/foot away from the home (the more the better) and should be at least extend two feet out from the home.
The thing to remember is water doesn't "want" to be trapped in soil so as it soaks into the ground around your home with bad grading it makes it's way to the area between soil and brick wall, once here pressure forces it into small cracks in bricks or mortar ....there's your leak. No matter of sealing the interior bricks will alleviate this problem unless you address the grading issue.....sorry

As for the quick wall, it sounds like you did the job right, it goes on like plaster and you simply trowel it out to an acceptable finish, the problem still is though, the quick wall will not seal 100% the joint between foundation and brick and definitely not between any dirt and cement/brick/concrete. The wetting down of the quickwall is to help stop the wall drying out too fast, if it sits in water it will absorb moisture (wicking).

First off, I want to thank you for all the advice up till now. It is men like you that help those of us out who just look at a project and think to ourselves....how the heck am I going to pull this off by myself. Anyway, I have finished patching one side of the house and will start the last of it next weekend. I am calling around for estimates on getting some fill dirt and will regrade once the patching is completed. Here is another question for you: The one area that we finished, my wife and I eventually want to put pavers down and I understand that you need to level the area out if you want to put pavers in. Since we have to regrade at a slight slope to draw water away from the house, is this going to be even possible, or should we consider another option?

[pushkins]

Yes you still need to have the grading going away from the house and this is still possible with pavers. Grade this area as normal with a slight slope away from the foundation and install your pavers, you have a little flexibility with the grading as the pavers being stone or concrete will direct the water away much faster with little to no permeability of water (unless you plan on wide spread pavers with gravel infill around them).
In an ideal pathway scenario concrete/pavers are placed up against the foundation with a fall away from the home, this fall can be reasonably slight as the water is directed away from the home and little to no water seepage occurs near the foundation.