Water Seepage From Concrete Floor Joints

[D45]

Ok.....so I am slowly fighting water seepage in to my shop, only during heavy heavy rains in the ground soaked Spring months or during July when the ground is rock hard and dry

The rain water appears to be getting in to the garage from a somewhat concentrated area of the garage.

This area has the typical felt concrete expansion joints, where the floor meets a footing/wall

If I remove the felt joint material and use backer rod and some sika-flex, will this seal it up 100%?

My plan was/is to remove as much as possible of the felt joint material (which is acting like a sponge because it is still moist a week after the rain), fill half the joint with sika flex, lay down some backer rod, then finish the top layer off with more sika flex............

Or, what should I use to seal this up?

 

[LegacyIndustrial]

D45: You need to stop the water from getting in there in the first place.
Check all your gutters and downspouts, check the grade around the shop.

If all else fails, you could dig out the material and fill it with "hydraulic cement". This is what pool builders use when they hit an underground spring. Keep in mind, that you may stop it at this location only for it to appear somewhere else.

 

[Falcon67]

Probably not going to do much. The drag strip here is two continuous pours, 25' wide each x 900'. It was saw cut every 20', the cuts packed with synthetic joint material and something similar to silka-flex. The surface eventually cracked every 10'. The ground slopes away from the track on both sides, there are no barriers at the edge of the surface that would contain water. Yet after rains water ***** up under the track and if it's hot the next day, water perks up through the cracks and joints like an old camp coffee pot.

You can try backer rod and a sealer, but the root of the issue is likely still under that. If you can't stop the water from being drawn under the slab, you'll not make much headway. It may involve trenching and some sort of French type drain to pull water away from the base of the structure.

 

[ForceFed70]

Effective water sealing happens from the outside, not the inside.

As others have said - is the ground sloped appropriately? Gutters and downspouts keeping the water away? The fact that it's only coming in around 1 spot makes me think it's not a high water table problem.

 

[dw1]

The felt is an expansion joint and as your 3 replies above, you need to get rid of or divert the water before it gets to your garage, do you have any pictures of outside the garage? if your garage is a lower elevation, do you have room to dig a swale and divert the water before it gets to you? I did this on my barn, also I buried a 4" sewer pipe and tied my downspouts into this to get rid of the rain water. Take a few pics outside if you can and post

 

[D45]

The area on the outside of this wall is an enclosed patio and then also a 10x12 deck

There are no downspouts in this area

 

[lakeroadster]

Photo's would help us to help you. Post some up.

 

[D45]

The water is near the area marked "Door into patio" and goes up the floor joint seam

 

[dw1]

How is the elevation/terrain of your yard? is it sloping downward "Toward" your garage/house?
Is your house/garage built on top of a spring?
Did this problem just start or has it been an issue? are your gutters clogged up? make sure they are draining away from the house, and yes, a few outside pics would be great.

 

[MagKarl]

Don't waste your time and money on interior band-aids until you address the exterior drainage problem.

 

[JRC3]

You might get lucky with a french drain along the long back wall. Getting the water away from the drain could be a problem if you can't run it to see daylight or tie into some other lower drainage pipe. Or if driveways are in your way of running the end to daylight. Otherwise a sump basin and pump would be necessary.

The "might" part is if the water comes from the other side of the house, and if the footer along the garage is too much of a barrier for the water to get to the french drain. More than likely the water is coming from that long wall of the garage, though.

 

[PT Doc]

Excellent recommendations of attacking from the exterior. Is your patio sloped sufficiently. I believe concrete can be as low,as 0.5% grade to effectively move water otherwise you should have a minimum of 2% slope away from the house. Check the patios then check the solid the the patio butts against. I would think that you will find a grading issue. If you can't figure it out call a survey company to survey your lot.mtheynwill mark locations that need to be adjusted to have the grade certified.

 

[Danster2]

I owned a basement/ concrete waterproofing company for 10 years...we waterproofed everything from basements to the holland tunnel in NYC. During heavy rains you experience "hydrostatic" pressure build up around any disturbed soil areas under the slab. The most effective way to repair water seepage through cracked concrete/expansion joints is a product called Mountain Grout. It is installed by injection by a qualified installer. You can google the product and they will be able to steer you to an installer in your area. Hydraulic cement will not work for a permanent repair against water infiltration due to " hydrostatic" pressure. P.s. I have no affiliation to the product any longer, I just know it is the solution that works...

 

[D45]

I removed all the felt backer board, near the area that water was seeping

Majority of it was wet and some was dry and brittle

 

[D45]

 

[D45]

Through the white door is the enclosed patio

From the enclosed patio looking in to the garage

 

[D45]

The back raised area stays dry, all the time

 

[D45]

Outside pics:

 

[dw1]

Look at your gutter running around your garage, it looks like the gutter running towards the house is sloped downward, if you get a lot of rain, I bet it comes out of the gutter and runs down the wall into the lower part? next time it rains a whole lot and leaks into the garage, look and see if gutter is over flowing? just a thought. Maybe add a downspout on the corner of the garage by your patio table, run it out, into your yard, or try and raise gutter where its sloping to increase flow to down spout.

 

[D45]

I will put a long level on the gutter and see how its pitched.......thanks

 

[James-W]

One of the women my youngest daughter works with had a water leakage problem in her basement. After a hard rain water would get into the basement thru the basement wall. Her husband tried patching the inside concrete wall and it didn't do any good.

To make a long story short, they ended up having to have a basement waterproofing company come in and dig up the ground next to the wall. They then proceeded to coat the wall with a sealer and then a membrane of some sort and then another coat of sealer. They put tile of some sort to drain any water far away from the house and covered the tile with crushed rock. Finally, dirt was put back on top and some sod put down so everything looked normal, like nothing had been done. That solved the water leakage problem.

I am not saying you will need to do that, just saying that sometimes you need to take drastic steps to fix a problem. Hopefully you will be able to come up with a simple and fairly inexpensive solution and you won't have to do something as drastic as that lady did.

 

[D45]

I will put a long level on the gutter and see how its pitched.......thanks

It's pretty much dead level.......should I try to adjust it to pitch it slightly?

 

[Radix2]

Where a roof runs into a wall like you have there, there should be a kick out flashing to prevent water from running behind the siding.

One of the most overlooked required siding details anywhere - take a close up photo there to see how your builder handled it, but it is very common to have leaks in that area, and once under the siding, can come out many places on the inside, and of course rot the wall on the way down too.

 

[D45]

My fall project is to remove all these top 2x6 boards on this deck (12'x20') and install new boards.......they are just soft and need to go

So, this project might happen sooner than later....removing these deck boards will atleast some of the ground level area of the backside of the shop

I might be able to get under the enclosed patio also and see how things look closer to the area that water is seeping into

 

[D45]

I think I might also try to pull up these 4 stair/step boards, to see how the ground looks underneath up against the footing

 

[APEowner]

Make sure that the system that the gutters are running into is working. What happens to rain water on the open deck? It looks like it might just pool underneath. That could cause a problem.

 

[sean Buick 76]

I had a similar issue of water getting onto a un-covered concrete patio and then finding its way into the house so I just did a covered roof and it solved that problem....

 

[JRC3]

Pull those deck boards and you'll probably find that all that rain that passes the deck is pooling around some low spots along the footer. My house was that way. People think they don't need to backfill and grade around the footer/foundation because they are gonna deck it. Gravity and water along the foundation don't care about how a deck slopes.

 

[D45]

Once the exterior deck boards are removed, I wonder if I can build some sort of barrier to prevent the water from going back under the enclosed patio?

 

[lakeroadster]

Once the exterior deck boards are removed, I wonder if I can build some sort of barrier to prevent the water from going back under the enclosed patio?

I would think you could use something, maybe aggregate, to build up the area under the deck just enough to have it pitched away from the house. Then put down a very heavy seamless layer of poly (kind of like a swimming pool liner) on top of the aggregate. You could attach the poly to the perimeter of the under-deck support boards where the boards are nearest the home.

This would direct any water away from the foundation and keep the water from soaking into the soil under the deck.

 

[D45]

Well I guess the first step is to get exterior deck boards off and see how the ground looks first

 

[Larrymer]

I have been fighting a similar issue in my garage. I installed a gutter (wasn't one of that side of the house, I never noticed ), used Sika flex on the wall/sidewalk seam outside, and did some stuff to the grades near where I was seeing water. So far so good.

 

[D45]

I pulled the 4 stair boards, going from the enclosed patio and into the garage

There is rock down, but it is hard to tell on the grading

Here are some pics:

 

[D45]

 

[D45]

I wonder if I could remove some of the rock from around this concrete footing and inject a material under the footing........or use some sort of product/material or seal it up better?

Is the Mountain Grout the only solution in my case?

Or, once I remove the outside exposed deck, would it be possible to built a "water wall" somehow to prevent water from getting in under the covered patio?

 

[Ed Devinney]

Stopping the water at point of entry is much harder than directing the water away in the first place.

Water wants to flow. As Lakeroadster says, building a poly-covered grade underneath the deck will move the water away (assuming the deck area is the culprit). You'll have to give that new runoff a place to go, so think about how the water will drain from the under-deck grade out and away from the garage. Follow it through until you know it's flowing away from the foundation.

 

[ddawg16]

The exact reason I built my garage with stem walls.

If the water goes more than 8" high, I have bigger problems than a little water in the garage

 

[jgromada]

I remember my home inspector discussing this with me prior to home purchase and we had evidence of water seepage in basement.

1. Ensure all gutters & downspouts are in place and directing water a distance away from house/garage

2. Build up soil near house so it can't pool there, before you do that put a layer of thick plastic sheeting to make sure water doesn't seep into soil right by house.

3. I think he referred to it as a swale or a low path where water can be directed away from house/garage. In my case I took a big rear tine tiller and tilled a 3 ft wide path that directly the majority of water away from back of house and towards driveway which was lower. That worked quite well getting majority of water from rear of house.

4. On inside if there has been leakage through block wall there is leaching of salts onto the surface. This is referred to as efflorescence, you will need an etching agent to get rid of it. Use rubber gloves as this is nasty stuff!

5. Unsightly walls can then be treated with a paint sealant like Dry-lok. Try and ventilate the area while painting as the smell will bother some people terribly. This will seal the wall from water, but hydrostatic pressure if there is enough water can force water up from concrete floor.


If the problem was particularly bad it can be treated externally by excavating the soil next to house and treating wall and put in something to direct the water away. This is both labor extensive and expensive.

On the inside the next steps would be to add a French drain where the interior perimeter is cut out to form a channel where water can go and ultimately drain into a sump pump. I think this is a good idea to get a second opinion here as once a French drain goes in the floor structure is breached and there will forever be a path fro water to come up from the floor.

 

[D45]

If I were to call a business to look at this problem, what kind of company would look at this?

 

[lakeroadster]

If I were to call a business to look at this problem, what kind of company would look at this?

Basement or Foundation Waterproofing Companies