Water leaking through two story basement wall at rebar tie points

You could put in an underdrain system for the purpose of intercepting what seems to be seepage water moving down gradient from the hill to a lower gradient. The underdrain would offer the seepage water a path around the foundation wall. This system consists of perforated pipe bedded in permeable fill (i.e. peastone). When the seepage encounters the underdrain trench, it will enter the perforated pipe through the holes. The pipe will reroute this seepage around the foundation.

The problem occured when the Contractor did not provide a proper key-way and waterstop at the construction joint between the footing and the wall.

I am making assumptions here which will need to be verified for a successful design. You need to determine the soil permeabilty, ground water gradient across the site, etc. for a successful design. If the water table gradient is zero this solution will not work. This would typically be the case at the bottom of the hill where the ground water is above the slab.

The principal here is that the building was placed on the slope of land under which exists a confined aquifer which the house construction rendered unconfined. Again, all of this is based upon pure speculation. You can place monitoring wells in to find the seasonal water table. Take a 2 inch PVC pipe and make a well by cutting the pipe every couple of inches with a hack saw. Cap the well. Go out and measure the water at each well. You will then be able to determine the water table gradient across the site.

Good answer!

excellent answer, sparky this is a thums upper.

if another comment is allowed, i if they are available on the county planning office files i would fine comb the original buiding plan inspector inspector at the county offices then set up a chain of suits to cover the expenses you are now running into: after doing that and meticulously following EVERYTHING in reply one you might want to consider putting the heavy duty 1.5" thick bubble pack type wall drain material the full length of house foundation width plus 2' on each corner from at least a foot above ground right down to the outside line of the french drain that would/ should have been filed in the original plans and inspected by the county property standards officer

'da ber

Electroosmosis is used in the southeast to correct this problem. If you have a compatible soil type all you have to do is sink some electrodes.

Not too far from your location, Elkgrove to be exact, is the Sacramento Regional Waste Water Treatment Plant. When they experience this problem, they use a contractor who drills holes in the leaking area, then injects a compound that expands when in contact with moisture. It works so well, that they will not allow any other method or contractor. I wish I could remember the name of the contractor.

This sounds like it might be a bentonite injection process. In theory if done right will work quite well, BUT be very careful of contractor references. During the 60's and 70's, bentonite got a bad rap because of less than honest/qualified contractors squirting the stuff all over except near the problem areas.

Another possibility might be epoxy injection from the inside. Again the caveat is get a qualified contractor. I've used Perma-Seal in my area with good results.

Check www.basementsystems.com for information.

www.kryton.com

www.xypex.com

This is capillary Crystalline Reactive technology and, even though applied from the inside after removing the other attempts which did not work(must be applied to the concrete not a coating) it migrates as far as 18" into the concrete to seal the leak at the point of ingress. Thus, the rebar is spared from the oxidation caused when it is subjected o the wet environment caused by the leak.

A good explanation of how a DIYer could do the work. I give you a "Good Answer".

And please share any details on outcome. It helps me learn (especially if you use a different fix) and satisfies my curiousity for "the rest of the story".

Bugger doing that kind of work Get professionals in.

Pressure grouting. Try leak-proof or http://www.pressure-grouting.com/

You maybe able to claim on insurance. If you try to do it yourself you may give yourself a false sense of safety. Let's face it SF isn't exactly the most seismicaly stable place in the U.S.