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Hi, recently I’ve noticed water getting under the house around the area closest to the external cladding. The house is on stumps.
To me it looks to be happening from where the concrete path around the house meets the external cladding. There is a foam expansion joint around the house, although it seems as though no caulking was placed on top of it and that over time parts have fallen away or eroded.
water seems to run into this foam and then under the house through gaps. In places where the gaps are larger and the foam has completely fallen out the water is pooling more.
My plan was to replace the expansion foam where there are large gaps and then seal over the new foam with sikaflex pro. I’ll also seal the other areas where the foam seems ok but has no current caulking seal as I assume that should have been done and that the foam alone is not sufficient.
there’s also a spot where the concrete has cracked which I assume I’ll need to repair with a concrete patch or something along those lines as water is sitting there: what product should I use?
Is that the correct way to hopefully fix the issue and what other things should I be checking?
Welcome to the Bunnings Workshop community @asmith54. It's amazing to have you join us, and many thanks for your question about repairing concrete.
What you've mentioned sounds spot on. Fill the gaps with foam and then Sikaflex over them.
Regarding the cracked section, you can chip out any loose material and then fill the area with Dunlop 5kg Ardit Rapidset Repair Mortar.
The only other thing to consider is that even after you fill and seal these areas, if the concrete was not graded away from the house sufficiently, the water might just start to pool in that location instead of previously seeping through to beneath the house.
Please let me know if you have any questions.
Mitchell
For the benefit of other readers of this discussion, please note we have a step-by-step guide How to fill a joint in a concrete slab that you might find helpful.
Jason
