I must sound like a broken record. LOL.

Peel and stick membranes are a poor waterproofing method period.
Those advising their use are not well informed ,or, have limited experience.

We warrant all our foundations against water penetration for 2 years , and this is the law of the land, here.
I like to sleep in Sunday morning, instead of having a customer call to say they've got a problem.


"Air Gap" membranes are reliable, easy to install, and cheap, all things considered.
They provide a direct path for water to travel vertically downward to the weeping tile.

Peel and stick membranes often fail, due to mishandling, lack of primer, poor substrate preparation, folds, tears, etc etc.
Their biggest problem is not allowing water that gets behind the system ,to exit.
Next thing you know, you've a puddle on the basement floor , and you don't know where it came from :-)

To be successful, peel and stick membranes have to have a secondary drainage plane provided for them.

Why bother, when "Air Gap" does it best.

Well said! Another air gap believer.

Dave

Soooooooo, are you guys saying dimpled plastic (Platon, etc.), is all that is needed on the wall below grade? I'd gotten the impression from another thread not long ago the general consensus was a dampproofing material should be applied to the styro and the dimple material over that. So what really is the best, or plenty adequate, way to go? I'm thinking of using a roll on water emulsion asphalt with Platon over that.

Mac, depends on your soil and back-fill material. We use only DMX and have had no problems. For you with a crawl space the there will be less hydrostatic pressure anyways, but the soil will be the big test.

Dave

I agree with Dave. Really no need to double up. We don't.
"Air Gap" will do the job by itself.
The smart young man you referenced had already applied his emulsion before he made a decision to use "air gap"
Anything you apply to the wall will trap water behind it, so for me it's a waste of time and money.
We only used peel and stick for a few jobs , until we got a call about a repair on a competitors foundation.
Numerous leaks thru quality ICF product seemed astounding at the time.
I'm forever grateful for that customer calling on us, before we had a similar problem with our own work.
That being said, my only experience is with asphalt type peel and stick.
There are "bentonite" products out there, but I'm sure they are in another price category.
And I cannot comment on the "spray-on rubber" systems, except to say that they probably need a secondary drainage plane also.

dmaceld,

We had a spray sealer installed. I think of this as damp-proofing. Ridgid drain pipe covered with sock. Next back filled 2 feet of drainage gravel and covered again with septic cloth. Waiting for the floors for the remaining back fill. When that time comes, it will be more drainage gravel.  This provides 1) a clear path for the water to make it to the drain tile and 2) a material that reduces the forces against the wall. Our walls are 12' tall in our walk out basement. Other materials can reduce the forces agaist the wall as well, light weight fired clay pellets and foam block. The foam block material was kind of odd. They just filled the entire trench sloping away from the building. I even played with the idea of using plastic bottles from the recycling center.

Patrick T

Thanks all for the responses. My mind is more settled now.

Dave, did you get PDF of my house plans I sent you via your email address?

MySafeHaven,

I'm not qualified to comment on your structural problems, but I want to repeat advice that you recevied earlier:  CYA -- call your attorney!

Make sure that you consult someone with significant experience in construction law, not just a generalist -- you need valid answers quickly.
If you don't already have such an attorney on retainer, contact the local bar assoc. for the area in which you built, and ask the bar for referals to several specialists.
Some bars provide for an initial consultation at a very reasonable rate -- if it's available, use it to evaluate the attorney.

If I were in your shoes, I'd want a construction attorney to advise me on:

What are the terms on the construction loan?
Is there any wiggle room there?
What do the construction contracts say?
What insurance and bond did the installer provide?
What are their terms?
What effect would accepting the work knowing of the present problems have on rights under those documents?
What effect does your acting as GC have on the situation?
Does Mich. have a contractor's civil recovery fund from which you could recover if the installer is judgment proof?
What are your options?
What are each option's cost, likely schedule, and likely outcome?
What does the attorney recommend?
Why doe the attorney recommend that specific approach?
Will the attorney represent you in that approach?
What are the fees and retainer?

Gather all of your documents before you meet with the attorney.
Identify each of the actors involved.
Identify what each did.
I dentify what you know,
isolate what you speculate and the basis for that speculation.
Identify what questions you want answered.

Good luck, I'm guessing you'll need it.

Larry

Eric and Dave,

I like the cut of your jibs. I believe you guys are correct in your assessments that each building site will dictate the neccessary approach to waterproofing. I have had my trials and tibulations with peel and sticks and have found that they have to much room for error and I won't use them on a basement. Air gaps are a great method of waterproofing if installed correctly. We also suggest spray on monolithic membranes such as E-Pro. We have even used waterproofing admixtures in our concrete in extreme situations. We also suggest to the use of Form-a-Drain since it is kind of hard to mess up your placement of your footing drain with it. My approach anymore has been to hire an expert. I have a guy that all he does is waterproofing and when he is done he provides a written warranty with it. This releases me from a lot of liability. This is the approach I have been passing along to all of my contractors that I train or assit also. Because sadly as this thread has ferreted out, we live in a litigious society.

ICF Contractor

Larry, thank you for your advice about hiring a lawyer. At present I am avoiding to go through that route as we are still in friendly terms with my contractor and are still talking about solving the problem. He does not listen much to my suggestions and thinks that the forums I go to are bogus. He does not do any email or internet stuff. We are being patient with him but if spring comes and we will have basement water problems after he says he fixed the problem then things will get ugly. We live in a very small town where everyone knows everyone and I definitely do not want to tarnish his reputation. We've talked to him yesterday and he said he cannot come and work on the house yet because he has to finish another job and he is just getting over the flu.

By all means avoid going that route if possible. With that being said, there is absolutly no harm in consulting with an attorney just in case spring comes and you have a pool where your basement is now. You will be a step ahead of the game.

I would also recommend consulting with an out of town attorney if you are concerned with small town gossip. If it were me I would be concerned that another job is already taking precedence over mine and he is claiming to be ill on top of it all, not to mention that he is ignoring your suggestions.

I hope you see him before next year as it is the weekend now and with Christmas just a few days away he might have to go shopping so that means you probably won't hear from him until next week but by then it will be the weekend again and then new years is just around the corner and with it being a holiday and all I wouldn't expect to see him until mid to late the week of the first or the first part of the following week...sorry!

You seem like an extremely nice person and I hope this all works out for you. Just keep doing what's right as you can hardly go wrong with that approach. Please keep us posted because as you can see we care how your project turns out.

Try and enjoy the holiday.

icfgal

I hate to say it but I don't think I would worry about his reputation if he cannot profide you with what he promised in the first place. It might wake him up and get on line/or classes and.........learn how to do it right the first time!

How did this end up turning out?

A construction lawyer may be OK to have, however a lawyer specializing in fraud in much more effective in these cases.  Having worked with numerous attorneys in the ICF field, as well as having a fair bit of trial expierience, I can safely say that a fraud attorney is more important.  The reason is that, at best, without proof of fraud, misrepresentation or such, the only financial corrective measures are costs you are out from the repairs, if the contractor misrepresented themselves, tried to hide items or simply lied about the "product", then the legal costs and additional items such as lost time, interest payments or other outside costs, can be recovered as well.  Its a long process, and very upsetting to the owners, so I would not reccomend simply going to a lawyer and suing the contractor.   Try to work it out first.  Most of the cases I have been involved with, have taken 1.5 to 2.5 years to go to court.  Better yet, do your research and use clear contracts.

An old topic, but I would use a few different color dyes to find out where the water is coming from.