Waterproofing in
Expansive Clay Soils
By Dan Calabrese
I
n much of America, soils don’t act in
the way contractors and homeowners
would prefer; they don’t stand still
and behave themselves. The more clay
content you find in soil, the more the soil
will expand and contract as the soil takes
on water and subsequently dries up.
The resulting movement may
only be a few inches, but a foundation
not constructed to account for such
movement will be vulnerable to structural
compromise and potentially catastrophic
waterproofing problems.
Expansive clay soils are most
prevalent in Georgia,
Texas, Colorado,
California and the
In western Texas, expansive clay soils
Dakotas – but traces of are so prevalent and difficult, that few
it can be found in most
parts of the country. houses are built with basements.
Contractors who
understand the nature of expansive clay
soil can take steps during the initial
construction phase of a home to mitigate
the clay’s likely effects. But often, they
don’t. Rising construction costs and
pressure to keep housing costs low can
create a temptation to cut corners, and
when that happens, the result can be
16 WATERPROOF!
Cave-In Catastrophe: Expansive clay soil is a deadly enemy to
foundation walls, like this one, which caved in as the result of
soil expanding against the structure's foundation.
costly remedial action down the road.
The tiny clay particles are invisible
to the naked eye, but they absorb water
with tremendous efficiency and expand
to several times their normal size as a
result. Just as efficiently as they expand,
they contract when the soil dries up
and the particles release the water to
evaporation.
Picture the brittle, cracking
remnants of a mud puddle after the sun
has followed the rain and dried up the
ground and you pretty much get the
idea. Now picture the same cracking soil,
expanding and contracting around the
foundation of a house, and it’s not hard
to envision three serious problems:
1. Expanding soil puts pressure on a
home’s foundation walls, potentially
causing them to bow inward and/or
crack, becoming vulnerable to water
Photos Courtesy Mike Trotter/Trotter Co.
seepage.
2. Contracting soil can create a gap
between the foundation wall and
the backfill, allowing water to run
down and settle along the base of the
foundation wall.
3. Water that seeps in between the
soil and the foundation can find its
way underneath the slab, making
the basement susceptible to damage
from water vapor and mold.
Contractors who operate in some
of the states most affected by expansive
clay soils discussed the
most effective steps—
both proactive and
reactive—for dealing
with waterproofing
challenges posed by
such soils.
Clay soil expands in an uneven
fashion, so when it expands enough to
move a home’s foundation, different parts
of the foundation will move in different
ways. The likely result is cracking, most
commonly at the corners of windows and
doors, in walls, garage slabs, walkways
and driveways.
 Outside walls are vulnerable to
movement as clay expands, and concrete
slab floors can be compromised by
water from rain, landscape watering or
plumbing leaks.

A simple, but costly, solution is to

backfill using gravel or some other non-
moving soil. If the foundation walls are
isolated from the movement of the soil,
the problem has been solved.
Unfortunately, this is often cost-
prohibitive, so many solutions involve
keeping the expansive clay backfill at a
constant moisture level.
Some fairly simple ways to do this
include:
• Use drip irrigation to water trees
and plants, thus minimizing the
amount of water that is soaked into • Install gutters and downspouts backfill is key,” said Troy Mardesen,
the soil. It’s also a good idea to avoid so water is deposited well away vice president of Denver-based
having trees and bushes within 10 from the house. Soil around the Mardesen Construction Services.
feet of the house, because they tend foundation also needs to be sloped
to absorb water and dry up the soil. away from the house. Mardesen often partners with
It also prevents roots from cracking • Compact the soil around the Denver-based AAA Waterproofing
the foundation walls. foundation. “The compaction of the on residential foundation jobs. Cathy

Fall 2008 17
 Clay soils expand when wet and shrink as they dry.
This movement can destroy block foundations. Luckily, by
following a few basic principles, this can be eliminated.

Monarez, residential manager for AAA,
said the techniques for preventing
waterproofing problems are fairly
straightforward, but a complication
can arise from working with engineers
who may not recognize that soil can be
different from house to house.
“They all have their own standard
drain detail that they specify,” Monarez
says, “and everything we do is per the
engineer’s specification.”
Monarez prefers water-based
barriers from Tremco like Tuff ‘N’ Dry
and Watchdog H3. “They’re environ-
mentally friendly and have no solvents
in them,” she said.
Mardesen adds, that he typically
puts an exterior drain all around the
building to ensure that water is directed
away from the foundation.
In western Texas, expansive clay
soils are so prevalent and difficult, that
few houses are built with basements.
Tom Witherspoon is founder
of S&W Foundation, a contractor in
the area. He says basements can be
built in expansive clay soils—if proper
precautions are taken.
“We’ve seen some foundations that
have been damaged by expansive clay,”
he admits, “but in every case where
we’ve had to repair them, it was a bad
design. They didn’t have the proper
waterproofing on the outside. They didn’t
have the drainage and a gravel median,
and it got them into trouble.
“If they’d had the correct
waterproofing membranes, and had
taken special care with the casting of
those walls, and installed a drainage
system and made sure it didn’t silt up
later – with a gravel median to keep
the hydrostatic pressure away from the
basement, they’d have been OK. But they

18 WATERPROOF!

didn’t do that.”
Bowed walls present a particularly
tricky remediation challenge, one that
Witherspoon said he tries to address by
making up for the original contractor’s
failures.
“In most cases, where we can, we
excavated on the outside and installed
what should have been done in the first
place,” Witherspoon said. “There are
times you can’t excavate because of the
adjoining construction, but wherever we
can, it’s the most effective way to do it.
In situations where the wall has bowed
in because of all this force, we’ll go in
with a carbon-reinforced barrier on the
inside and apply that to the wall to keep
the wall from bowing in anymore.” (See
Fixing Failed Foundations in the Summer
‘08 issue of this magazine for more
information.)
Often, Witherspoon finds bowed
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says traditional repair techniques are not
only expensive, but often unnecessary.
“You remove a huge quantity of
dirt,” he says. “But once you’ve done that,
you take the back of the wall and water-
blast it clean. That’s the waterproofing
route.”
The better, cheaper way? “The other
route is to bore underneath the house or
right behind the wall from one side to
another and put in perforated pipe and
drain the water out.” Witherspoon said.
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Fall 2008 19

In other cases, the walls are bowed in
three or four inches. Then you not only
have a waterproofing problem, you have
a structural problem.”
The bowing, of course, is caused by
saturated, expanded clay. But drought
conditions can be just as bad.
Fred Marshall, owner of Dallas-
based Advanced Foundation Repair,
said he has seen many incidents of water
flowing down below the foundation and
20 WATERPROOF!
then coming up to and through basement
floors.
“Typically what we’ve done is
lowered the water table by putting in
drains around the house to intercept the
water,” Marshall said. “Once you lower
the water content around the house, you
typically take care of the problem.”
Atlanta is known for its red clay, and
Mike Trotter, owner of Atlanta-based
Trotter Co., has seen more than his
share of clay-generated waterproofing
problems in his 40 years in the business.
His solutions usually involve stripping
the basement down to the bare concrete
walls and floor.
“We started this maybe 15 years
ago,” Trotter said. “Before that, we would
just cut the floor out and put the system
in, and leave the walls finished. As far
as keeping the basement from flooding,
that worked fine. But it often left mold
growing up inside those walls.”
Before refinishing, Trotter insists
on installing a vapor barrier on exterior
walls, and often installs an under-floor
drainage system as well. It’s pricey, but
he insists that anything less is a disservice
to the customer.
The conclusion? Waterproofing
systems in expansive clay soil require
careful engineering and installation.
Compaction, drainage, and landscaping
all play a role in keeping the backfill at
a constant moisture level. And that
consistent moisture level is key to
preventing a host of problems. 
Have

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