Building Foundation

Here are a couple notes from the study of typical building foundations:

• Hydrostatic Pressure causes water to penetrate any joint in underground construction.  Think.. water traveling up,sideways, etc.
• Waterproofing membrane is used when the foundation is subject to hydrostatic pressure.  It's a continuous seal over any construction.
• Joints in concrete foundation walls tend to leak.  Waterstops are continuous rubber protection immbedded in the concrete.

Comments

[Chuck]

don't wrap your waterproof membrane under your keyed foundation wall.
on the outside of the wall take the membrane down to the footing and then wrap it over top of the footing and return if down the outside of the footing approx. 4'6", locate the footing drain at the top of the foundation.
use a rubber waterstop between the footing and the foundation wall.
make sure that your foundation wall is a single pour and there is not any construction joints in the middle of the wall where it is unbraced.
also use filter fabric between the backfil gravel and the soil to keep the soil from seeping in a clogging the gravel. wrap the filter fabric around the foundation drain to prevent it from being clogged.
what is the base slab?