Com­mon Exte­ri­or Foun­da­tion Water­proof­ing Mem­brane Applications

Mar 6, 2012 • By Matthew Stock.

You’ve got a beau­ti­ful­ly fin­ished base­ment and you are start­ing to get water seep­ing in. How can you make this night­mare go away before your belong­ings start get­ting dam­aged? Some water­proof­ing com­pa­nies will tell you that you need to do the job from the inside. They may rec­om­mend inte­ri­or drain tile, but that will involve a lot of prep work, includ­ing such tasks as remov­ing car­pet­ing and pos­si­bly tak­ing down dry­wall or pan­el­ing. A full ser­vice water­proof­ing com­pa­ny will have a vari­ety of solu­tions. One pos­si­bil­i­ty is deal­ing with the prob­lem on the exte­ri­or of your home, so you don’t have to do any repairs inside. Keep­ing the water out­side your home is what an exte­ri­or foun­da­tion water­proof­ing mem­brane does best.

What is an exte­ri­or foun­da­tion water­proof­ing membrane?

Essen­tial­ly, an exte­ri­or foun­da­tion water­proof­ing mem­brane is a water­proof bar­ri­er for below ground appli­ca­tion to your foun­da­tion. Typ­i­cal­ly they are rolled-good or sheet prod­ucts that are lib­er­al­ly affixed to the wall, or cold flu­id applied sealants made of flex­i­ble asphalt mod­i­fied polyurethane that can be applied to the foun­da­tion with a hand trow­el, a roller or with spray equip­ment. The ben­e­fit of the liq­uid prod­uct is that upon cur­ing, it becomes a sin­gle seam­less unit designed to pro­tect your home from water pen­e­tra­tion, while still allow­ing the nor­mal expan­sion and con­trac­tion due to heat and cold.

What are the com­mon appli­ca­tions for exte­ri­or foun­da­tion water­proof­ing membranes?

Grad­ing Prob­lems: The ele­va­tion of the grad­ing around the home is often an issue. Does your home have a side­walk, patio, or a dri­ve­way right next to it? If your patio, for exam­ple, is locat­ed right next to the house and sits high­er than the top of the foun­da­tion wall, you could get ​“over the top seep­age”. After a rain or melt­ing snow, water pool­ing on your patio seeks a low­er point and flows next to and over the top of the foun­da­tion wall cre­at­ing the seep­age inside. The appli­ca­tion of an exte­ri­or foun­da­tion mem­brane in that area would elim­i­nate this prob­lem. Exte­ri­or mem­branes can be applied in small, prob­lem areas or around an entire struc­ture, from the foot­ing to the top of the foun­da­tion wall.

Porous Foun­da­tions: Prob­lems can also be due to the type of foun­da­tion wall in your home. Poured con­crete walls tend to crack, but each crack can be treat­ed indi­vid­u­al­ly. Mason­ry foun­da­tion walls are con­struct­ed of brick, con­crete block, tele­phone tile or stone, (all of which can be porous) and all use mor­tar to bind the pieces togeth­er. The mor­tar is weak­er than the mason­ry units and over time, water will slow­ly wash away the mor­tar that holds the wall togeth­er. Cracks can also begin to devel­op due to the weak­ened mor­tar and the set­tling of the foun­da­tion. Water will begin to pen­e­trate the mor­tar and the sit­u­a­tion will con­tin­ue to wors­en unless remedied.

To cre­ate the water­proof bar­ri­er with an exte­ri­or mem­brane for a foun­da­tion wall, the earth (and paving, where applic­a­ble) next to the wall must be exca­vat­ed, either by hand or machine. This dig­ging is cost­ly, but nec­es­sary to get at the prob­lem. After the wall is prepped and the mem­brane is applied, the ben­e­fits are two-fold in that the seep­age will not con­tin­ue in your base­ment and the mem­brane will also help to main­tain the struc­tur­al integri­ty of your wall.

Remem­ber, the most impor­tant part of doing any job is hav­ing the KNOWL­EDGE and EXPE­RI­ENCE nec­es­sary to do the job right. Hav­ing the tools and mate­ri­als to do the job is only half of what you need. Would you trust a guy with­out a doctor’s degree to diag­nose your med­ical con­di­tion, just because he had a stetho­scope? Well, if you want to get your seep­age prob­lem diag­nosed and repaired the right way, con­tact a rep­utable base­ment water­proof­ing com­pa­ny!

Tags: foundation waterproofing, exterior drain tile, exterior waterproofing

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