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dpb dpb is offline
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Default pinhole leak in basement floor


wrote:
I have pinhole leak in my concrete basement floor. ...
What can I do to stop the leak?

....
There are some other leaks at the joints between the wall and floor. To
help with these, I plan to extend the outlets of the gutters farther
from the house, seal the joint between the garage and the concrete
driveway apron, etc... But the pinhole leak is such a tiny leak - Is
there some direct fix? I might try simple/cheap/quick fixes even if
they're not guaranteed to solve the problem.


They're guaranteed to not solve the problem---sounds as though tbasc is
right.

It would help to know if this is a continuous problem, only occurs when
it rains, only when it rains for extended period, etc., etc., ...
Also, something about location and terrain would undoubtedly be good...

BUT, all that aside, under the assumption it is continual or nearly so,
you could always try hydraulic cement, but given the symptoms, I'm
guessing all you'll end up doing is forcing this water to find the
next-weakest link, so to speak. If, as it sounds like, you have a
water table higher than the basement floor, you have a positive
pressure at least equal to the height of that table above the floor
(and perhaps that's quite a large number if this is part of an overall
water source rather than just that your basement excavation is acting
as a sump). This pressure is the driving force for the water ingress
and closing off one relief point will simply increase the pressure
elsewhere. I had a similar situation in a rental house once where it
leaked profusely during wet weather but was mostly confined to a single
point. Not thinking, I did precisely what you're proposing during a
particularly wet time and as I watched, the leak went from one
comparatively small location fairly near the sump to coming out of
every crack and fissure in the slab. I could actually hear the slab
crack and pop as it made it's pressure relief. Needless to say, that
situation was less palatable than the original. My bet would be you'd
find something similar happens...

To fix this problem is undoubtedly going to take the services of a
qualified engineer who knows the local hydrology and can look at the
particular house and see if there is a practical way to divert the
water away. It might be this is one of those situations where the wall
drain to the sump is the only economically feasible alternative.