How to fix holes in your home's concrete foundation

Q. I have to make an unexpected repair to my poured concrete foundation. A water leak led me to remove drywall in my basement, and to my surprise, I discovered rows of holes 5/8-inch diameter in my concrete walls. Some of the holes have water dripping through them. These perfectly drilled holes are not random and are as deep as the foundation is thick. What created them? How can I patch them so they don't leak? What's the best material to use when doing concrete repair for cracks or holes like this? - Bryan R., Cincinnati

A. The holes in your foundation were not drilled; they were created by smooth steel rods that were part of the foundation-form panels used to create your concrete foundation.

These rods passed through the concrete forms. Slots at each end of the rod held a steel pin that prevented the forms from expanding outward under the enormous pressure of the liquid concrete that filled the forms to create your foundation walls. Once the concrete set and hardened, the form panels were removed and the rods tapped out with a hammer, leaving these holes with the smooth bore.

I have to believe that the foundation contractor used a concrete repair product at the very least on the outside face of your foundation that's now covered with dirt. Unfortunately, he may have used the wrong product for basement concrete repair.

There are many concrete repair products out there, but my personal favorite for this situation is a powder that contains Portland cement, bentonite clay and some other ingredients that cause the patching material to harden and expand at the same time. Bentonite is a fine clay that expands when it gets wet.

Many homeowners might try to repair and patch these holes with bricklayer's mortar or a mixture of Portland cement and sand. Or they may think that an epoxy concrete repair is even stronger. The trouble with regular mortar and Portland cement is that they shrink ever so slightly as they harden and cure. This creates a tiny pathway for water to enter.

You need a product that actually expands as it cures, much like you see with spray foam insulation. If you've ever used this foam, you know it goes into a crack one size, but hours later, it's much bigger, as the foam has hardened.

These expanding hydraulic concrete-repair cement products are available at hardware stores, building supply businesses and home centers. They come as a dry powder in a can and will clearly say on the label that they expand as they harden. This is mission critical. Look for that on the label.

These products often contain ingredients that cause them to harden pretty quickly. It's not uncommon to have work time measured in just a few minutes. I'd only mix up what I could use in 10 minutes. You can sometimes extend the work time by refrigerating the powder to get it cold and using very cold water as you mix it.

Be sure to vacuum out the holes and remove all debris. If you can insert a small bottlebrush to get out any dust or silt that's on the concrete, this will really help ensure patching success. You want the concrete surface in each hole to be perfectly clean.

Just before filling each hole with the expanding concrete-repair product, use an old spray bottle and spritz the hole with a spray of clean water. You want the surface of the inside of the hole to be slightly damp. This will really help the patching material bond with the dry concrete.

Tim Carter is a columnist for Tribune Media Services. He can be contacted through his Web site, www.askthebuilder.com .

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Cash deals raise January sales of existing homes, report says

Sales of previously owned homes increased nationwide in January, driven by all-cash purchases that suggest investors are chasing after foreclosures and other bargains in an ailing housing market, an industry group reported Wednesday.

Sales rose 2.7 percent from December, to a seasonally adjusted 5.36 million, the National Association of Realtors reported. The purchases - which include single-family homes, condominiums and townhouses - were up 5.3 percent from a year ago.

Although the figures reflect an improved economy, they also capture some of the underlying weaknesses in the housing market, namely the persistently large number of foreclosures that continued to drag down prices in January and attract investors.

Foreclosures and other distressed properties made up 37 percent of homes sold last month, the group reported. The cheap homes lured investors, who accounted for 23 percent of buyers, up from 20 percent the previous month and 17 percent a year ago.

As more investors entered the market, all-cash purchases surged to their highest level since the group started tracking the numbers in October 2008. The increase suggests that stringent lending rules are shutting out traditional buyers and empowering people with hefty sums of cash to close deals, said Lawrence Yun, the group's chief economist.

But the January sales numbers may be deceptively high, said Mark Vitner, senior economist at Wells Fargo Securities.

After reports of widespread paperwork errors surfaced in October, many major lenders temporarily halted foreclosures. Some have since lifted the freeze. "Sales that would have normally taken place in October, November and December got pushed into January," Vitner said.

None of this bodes well for home prices, because foreclosures tend to drag down values. The median price nationwide fell 3.7 percent, to $158,000, in January, the Realtor group said.

Many economists said that if the economy takes a turn for the worse or oil prices rise significantly because of political turmoil in the Middle East, consumer confidence could wane and home sales could plunge.

Some economists also cast doubt on the Realtor group's numbers, suggesting that they were inflated because of its methodology. Most recently, mortgage research firm CoreLogic said the sales results could have been overstated by 15 to 20 percent in 2010.

Yun said his group will review data from the past few years.

He acknowledged a possible "upward drift" in the numbers. The sales data are collected from local multiple listing services. A Realtor, for instance, may advertise a home in two neighboring cities. When the home sells, the transaction may be counted twice, he said.

A decline in homes sold by owner may also distort the numbers, Yun said. Multiple listing services include mainly properties advertised by Realtors. As more sellers have turned to Realtors in recent years, the increase may register as an increase in sales when it is only a rise in transactions by Realtors, he said.

Yun cautioned that no housing data is flawless. The CoreLogic data, for instance, came from court records. As the recent foreclosure paperwork debacle shows, not all court records are accurate.

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