Shop sealing???

[DaveO]

Not to steal KC7CN's thread on concrete crack repair, but inspired by it to bring up an issue that I have, I start this new one.
I have had enough, every time we get a significant rain, like we have been having today in the Triangle (non-stop from just before daylight to present) I get water in my shop (garage). It's what I call a daylight garage. The front is open but most of the other three walls are below grade. The water seepage doesn't really affect any of my tools, as I have raised everything up after the first incident. But it does make a huge mess to clean up and causes my wife to ask me to fix it...I don't know how :icon_scra :5dunce: I have a two fold problem. First the water is coming up from underneath the slab, through a narrow crack in the middle of the slab. Second, it is also coming in from the intersection of the slab and the block walls.

So I am looking for suggestions as to how to cheaply seal the crack and the intersection between the block wall and slab to keep the water out.

TIA,
Dave

 

[Canuck]

Dave,

In my old place (in Canada), we had a basement with poured concrete walls. Of course there were holes in the walls about every 3-4 feet where the rebar was placed with the forms as the concrete walls set up. Once cured, the builder comes along, removes the rebar and plugs the holes with cork (yes cork!) and then a quick coat of thinset. I had major problems every spring with water seeping in. I removed the cork in each hole and stuffed them with hydraulic cement. Never had a problem with water in the basement again!

Some info here........

Using Hydraulic Cement For A Fast Fix - Popular Mechanics

Worked for me. But, I am not sure if it work in your situation.

Wayne

 

[Jim Murphy]

IMHO, the only thing that's gonna fix that problem is draintile.

If you think you're gonna stop water, I can provide a link to the Grand Canyon.

And draintile installation aren't cheap (poor grammar used for emphasis).

 

[alleng]

dave it looks like you have a basement type garage,wish i could help,being a carpenterand all,but living in eastern ncif we cant even dig a hole 2' deep without it filling half full of water,so im afraid i have no experience with this type of problem.my parrents did however have a garage with concrete floor. when built they did not put plastic down before pouring,and when it would rain like today the floor would condensate and get realy wet,they tried watersealers like thompsons.but it didnt work.sorry i cant be of more help,but can say what didnt work for us

 

[yellofins]

Dave,
Do you have gutters and downspouts on the house?
Do they drain right next to the house.
We had a similar problem and had to install black drain pipe to move the downspout water from beside the house to the lawn.
We also had to dig around the foundation and add a gravel drain area to move water around the house.
We had access to a mini excavator so it wasn't too bad.
It would have been almost impossible to do it by hand.
It also gave us new landscaping opportunities.

I hope you come up with an easier solution......

Ron

 

[DaveO]

I do have a French drain installed around the perimeter of the house, as the backyard is mostly up hill from the house. Also have gutters and all the down spouts are piped underground a good distance away from the house. What I don't know, if it is in existence, is a foundation drain-tile around the block wall of the [strike]garage[/strike] shop.
I had originally thought about hydraulic cement. I have used it to seal water-features in the past and that stuff is quite remarkable.
I was hoping to find someone who had a similar situation and hear what they did? Drylock, caulk, tar :icon_scra
Thanks for all the tips so far, please keep them coming :icon_thum

Dave

 

[Douglas Robinson]

Dave:

It might not be simply, but could you pour a new floor over the existing one and put a plastic barrier between the old and new?

Doug

 

[NCPete]

Dave, we used DryLock and it proved generally a great success for my basement rooms in northern NY. It took several years before the water found new places to seep in through :roll:

might want to seal the gaps with hydraulic cement, then drylock it all.

 

[dtomasch]

Dave
I used dryloc in my basement with good success. I think it's the best "cheap" fix. I think a 5 gal bucket cost me about 70 ducks. It sure beats the perminant fix of footer drains.

 

[BumoutBob]

Sounds like water is flowing underneith the shop concrete slab. Your approch is to try to keep it out with a sealer. Another approch is to use a sump pump. Yes, this is the expensive way. I had this done to a 25 year old house in MD. The waterproofer man came in and removed 18" of concrete from the edge of the floor where the water was coming in(40' worth). He then drilled 1/2" holes in the wall so that the outside water could come in and flow into the drain tile around the INSIDE edge of the slab. This let the water flow to the sump pump. Never had water in the basement again. The 20 sq yards of new carpet finally got dry.

Perhaps there isn't any drain tile on the inside of the slab in your case, so the water just flows where it will. Think where you might put a pump--like a downhill wall at the end of the crack and then open up that leaky crack and drop a pipe in there to the pump.

 

[jeff...]

Had a similar problem with a house in Northern IL, there was two cracks in the walls, Lucky for me a buddy of mine had experience fixing this kind of problem. He came over with a hammer, chisel and air compressor made the crack into a slight V and injected hydraulic cement through a air gun like tool that had a small dia tube on the end. He stuck the tube in the wall and injected the hydraulic cement into the crack then finished it off with a trowel. I didn't notice any leaking problem afterwards. The basement had a sump pump that would run during heavy periods of rain and during the spring snow melt.

Up there you really needed a basement to stay in during periods of awful cold in the winter when the power would go out. We camped out a few times in the basement during bad winter storms and it was a great place to hide for tornado warnings.

Sorry I couldn't be of anymore help.

 

[jmauldin]

Dave,
Another sugestion. Take a jack hammer (you can rrent them, electric or hydrralic at rental places) and dig a trench about a foot wide and a foot deep around the entire outside wall ON THE INSIDE. Put a plastic drain pipe (with holes) in the bottom, cover with gravel, vent outside, then concrete over it. Then follow the suggestion of some of the others and coat the walls with Drylock. I know it sounds crazy, but it has worked for me.
Jim in Mayberry

 

[Joe Scharle]

I would try laying 4" perf pipe flush with the ground along the back of the garage first; draining along the side, and see if that relieves the hydraulic pressure caused by the downhill runoff.

 

[NZAPP1]

Dave,
Another sugestion. Take a jack hammer (you can rrent them, electric or hydrralic at rental places) and dig a trench about a foot wide and a foot deep around the entire outside wall ON THE INSIDE. Put a plastic drain pipe (with holes) in the bottom, cover with gravel, vent outside, then concrete over it. Then follow the suggestion of some of the others and coat the walls with Drylock. I know it sounds crazy, but it has worked for me.
Jim in Mayberry

Dave
I had to do the same as Jim in my mothers basement. I also punched holes in the block under the slab and had water shot out about 4 feet. We had DryLocked the block and it was holding water. Once I re leaved the pressure and installed the pipe and pump we never had water again. I sure was a lot of work but Mom gained 2 bed rooms and a large play room for the grand kids

 

[junquecol]

Not to steal KC7CN's thread on concrete crack repair, but inspired by it to bring up an issue that I have, I start this new one.
I have had enough, every time we get a significant rain, like we have been having today in the Triangle (non-stop from just before daylight to present) I get water in my shop (garage). It's what I call a daylight garage. The front is open but most of the other three walls are below grade. The water seepage doesn't really affect any of my tools, as I have raised everything up after the first incident. But it does make a huge mess to clean up and causes my wife to ask me to fix it...I don't know how :icon_scra :5dunce: I have a two fold problem. First the water is coming up from underneath the slab, through a narrow crack in the middle of the slab. Second, it is also coming in from the intersection of the slab and the block walls.

So I am looking for suggestions as to how to cheaply seal the crack and the intersection between the block wall and slab to keep the water out.

TIA,
Dave

Dave, there should be four inches of stone under your slab, that is if it was built in the last 30 years. Hydraulic pressure is causing water to seek relief- thru the cracks. I think my first choice would be to try to get a gravity drain out, but also a sump pump could be installed. A hole would have to be cut in floor, a well built, and drain run to exterior. Well can be pressure treated wood, with holes drilled in the sides. Just an open top/ bottom box, surrounded by washed stone.