How to fix a leaking wall

This one.

This is the sewer main for my house. The wall is leaking water through around the PVC sleeve that is cemented into the wall. The other side of the sleeve is about 3 feet below grade Underground. And under the hvac unit. So digging out the far side of it would be just shy of impossible. Thankfully the caulking seal between the main and the PVC sleeve is watertight so I just have to worry about the block wall to PVC Junction.

How do i fix it? Now that I know it exists it's going to bother me until it's repaired.

You've got to incentivize the water on the other side of the wall to go somewhere else.  As water is inherently lazy, it will go where the going is easiest.

I have an issue with water on one wall, I drilled holes in the bottom of the wall, inserted 1/2" pvc pipe, and ran a line to the floor drain. Water now has an easy path and it drains naturally with no buildup. 

So to be clear, the sewage is contained inside the pipe but you're getting muddy water infiltration that's running down the wall?  How is the drainage outside that area?  Make sure you have no standing water laying against the wall.

Since getting to the outside is problematic at best, my approach would be to open up the block around the PVC enough to get a good injection of silicone caulk in there (make sure everything is spotlessly clean first for good adhesion)

Correct. No sewage issue. Just muddy water.

No standing eater at that point in tue foundation that i have seen, and ive added fill dirt there to drain away from the foundation, but at most its inly a foot or two. 

How would you go about opening up the block for additional caulking without damaging things further?

And floor drain isnt an option here. Which sucks, as it would be nice to have for other reasons.

No standing water, and you're under the impression that that's not turd water? I've seen foundation wall leaks that were definitely NOT brown. 

Sorry, Michael, but I'd do the PITA task of digging that up, outside, and finding the break. 

Hammer and a chisel will work if you don't have a small electric or pneumatic chisel. 

If advise against caulk. It'll be a temporary bandaid at best. Better would be hydraulic cement. Although that's still a temporary repair. Although it may be years before it fails, it will certainly fail. 

To fix it right you're going to have to go outside.

This is what you need:

https://www.emecole.com/pages/pipe-penetration-kit-structural-polyurethane-foam-1-to-4-pipes.html

its a poly foam injection kit intended for exactly your situation. You epoxy injection ports to the seam between the pipe and wall then seal all around the pipe with epoxy then inject a hydrophilic foam into the gap. It goes out and seeks voids and water and expands to fill them and cures to a water resistant barrier. I had exactly your situation with my water main entrance and did this sealing four years ago and have had no water entry since. 

Where is tha water going to go if you keep it from leaking into the house at that location.

Those cinder blocks may fill with water and just start leaking somewhere else.

^ what HersheyMcJizzyhands said. (Sorry, been sitting in that one for a while)

Can vouch for emecole products, used them professionally for many years.

In reply to Nick Comstock :

I think you shoulda sat on that one a lot, lot longer.

The reason I am certain it is groundwater and not sewer coming through the wall is that this morning while the washing machine was dumping the rinse cycle we also flush the toilet and I watched the pipe. No new water. Pretty sure that it only comes after a few days of hard rain.

Are your downpipes draining rain water away from the house?  That is where I would start looking.  I had a similar issue as the water was trying to come into a corner of our basement.  Fixing the downpipe and installing larger drain lines fixed the issue.

In reply to dculberson :

Oh that's only half of it. I've got plenty more where that came from.

if that was your sewer line leaking, trust me, you would know it by the smell. 

sVreX will be along shortly to tell you how to fix this. 

So far it sounds like the linked epoxy is part of the solution. Also, checking my gutters and downspout tubes, as well as working on the foundation grade some more.

That about sum it up?

dculberson said:

This is what you need:

https://www.emecole.com/pages/pipe-penetration-kit-structural-polyurethane-foam-1-to-4-pipes.html

its a poly foam injection kit intended for exactly your situation. You epoxy injection ports to the seam between the pipe and wall then seal all around the pipe with epoxy then inject a hydrophilic foam into the gap. It goes out and seeks voids and water and expands to fill them and cures to a water resistant barrier. I had exactly your situation with my water main entrance and did this sealing four years ago and have had no water entry since. 

Was going to post this exact thing. I had a pipe penetration leaking in my basement for about 2 years. Tried just about everything. First graded outside to get the water further away from house and eliminate low spot. This helped but water still poured in after heavy rain. Next i chissled out all the old mortar and repacked with hydraulic cement. Again this helped but still had water coming in. Next I found this kit and decided to give it a shot. I cleaned up the area real good and followed the directions. This was about 4 months ago and it has been a really wet spring here. Have not had so much as a drip since. This stuff worked good for my application.

Brett_Murphy said:

Where is tha water going to go if you keep it from leaking into the house at that location.

Those cinder blocks may fill with water and just start leaking somewhere else.

The foam is pretty amazing. It's water activated, so anywhere there's moisture it will expand faster and farther. So it fills voids, cracks, gaps, etc underground and does a pretty good job of chasing water away from the wall. Obviously if you have a massive water problem where there's water pooling against the house you need to do more than this. But if it's just a single point of leak like this, and the ground is graded right, downspouts flowing away from the house, etc, the foam is a perfect solution.

Mine has the same issue. After 409 days of rain, it's now 97 degrees with no rain for the next month. 

My plan is to clean the area as much as I can, and cover it in silicone. I'll update if it works. If it doesn't work I'll buy the kit, but silicone is cheaper. 

Silicone won’t work, at least not long term.  Don’t waste your money trying to half ass it.  

You always want to seal leaks from the outside rather than patching from the inside, it's a much better solution all around.

If you absolutely can't, hydraulic cement has been used in this capacity alot but anything you use from the inside will leak one day

In reply to Patrick :

I wouldn't consider sealing it from the outside to be half assed. Considering silicone is sealing most windows as well as skyscrapers and storefronts, I'm thinking it's a pretty decent solution. 

Don’t use silicone under ground (or submerged). Wrong product. 

In reply to OHSCrifle :

What would you recommend?