Repair That Foundation... You Can Do It Yourself!

Image Gallery LEFT: This section of a brick foundation was plastered over with a quarter inch of mortar. RIGHT: The rotted grout was removed from around the bricks and replaced by pointing (a technique that involves putting new mortar in the cracks and blending it to resemble the old mud).

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When you start thinking about weatherproofing your house, look down. You may need to.. .

by Bob Johnson

Quite often homeowners are so busy insulating, caulking, and weatherstripping obvious energy leaks that they fail to check their homes' foundations for the kind of seepages that can cause cold floors (and feet), higherthan-need-be utility bills, frozen water pipes, and drafts up walls and around heat ducts.

After years of being exposed to cold, rain, and snow, the mortar that holds together the foundations (usually block, rock, or brick) of older homes tends to develop holes and cracks. It takes only a few minutes to determine whether your underpinning needs attention, and-better still-just a few sparetime hours to make the repairs.

WHAT CAN YOU DO?

There are two ways to stop such leakage without having to resort to building a new foundation, and, surprisingly, the more expensive method is not in most cases the best.

The first process-and the least effective, to my way of thinking-is to put fiberglass batts or roll insulation on the inside of the leaking wall. You see, it's virtually impossible to recover the cost of this repair in energy savings over a reasonable period of time, and though this procedure may stop the leaks, it doesn't stop the deterioration.

The alternative is to point or plaster (or both) the bulwark. These jobs can be accomplished in a few hours-even by a noviceand the raw materials are not costly.

WHAT YOU'LL NEED

The supplies necessary for pointing and plastering include masonry-grade cement, sand, and water. (EDITOR'S NOTE: The author recommends masonry-grade cement because it is finely ground and thus quite adhesive, and also because it contains additives that control the setting time and add waterproofing.] Each project will require a different amount of grout, but a 94-pound sack of cement (about $4.50) and 2 cubic feet of sand (around $16.00 a cubic yard) should carry you through a weekend of plugging the gaps ...and even leave you with filler for the children's sandbox!

If you don't have a mortar box or cement mixer on hand, an old galvanized foot tub or a five-gallon plastic bucket-the kind industrial supplies come in-will work fine. Just be sure to clean all utensils as soon as you're finished for the day. You'll also need a small pointing trowel, a plastering trowel (if you decide to do both jobs), a wire brush, a whisk broom, a big, sturdy screwdriver, a putty knife, and a spray bottle (the kind window cleaner comes in).

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