How to Repair the Walls of Your Basement Shedding Concrete Blocks

Learn how to repair chipped concrete walls in basements with expert tips. Find out how to cut around chipped areas with a circular saw and how to use sealants to protect your countertop.

How to Repair the Walls of Your Basement Shedding Concrete Blocks

If you have noticed chipping on the wall of your basement or other vertical concrete surface, the solution can be a bit complicated. To fix a concrete wall that is chipping, you must first cut the concrete around the chipped area. Make the cut about three-eighths of an inch deep with a circular saw. After that, remove any loose concrete from the chipped surface.

Chipped or chipped parts can be removed with a cold chisel and hammer. Once you have removed the damaged material, you can begin to repair the chipped concrete. You can use a sealant such as Quikrete's Concrete & Masonry Waterproofing Sealant to protect the new look of your countertop and prevent damage from acid spills, such as vinegar or lemon juice. If the old sealant has hardened, crumbled or separated from concrete at some points, you can also use a sealant to fill in the joints and help them do their job. Chipping of foundations is almost always due to age or drainage problems and not due to improper construction practices. Repairing the chipping of concrete can be as simple as fixing the underlying problem, removing damaged material from the surface, and re-pouring a part of the slab.

If there were an inch or so, then yes, you would want to hire an experienced bricklayer or a structural or civil engineer who had experience and knowledge in residential block foundations. Horizontal cracks in a cinder block wall more immediately threaten serious collapse than vertical cracks. As far as I know on the subject, the only solutions that you can apply from the inside, such as another sealant or a large layer of concrete and lime stucco, are temporary solutions and any real solution would have to be made from the outside of the base. But rarely did these flimsy versions of the modern (and harder, stronger) concrete block lead to a construction failure due to its innate properties. Semco has the same positive characteristics of concreteSemco will offer the same positive characteristics of concrete in appearance and durability, but at the same time will compensate for its shortcomings. Lucky for you, stains and scratches rarely penetrate deeper than the top layer of a concrete countertop, so you don't have to remove too much surface to get rid of them. See DIAGONAL CRACKS in BLOCK FOUNDATIONS, WALLS for details on diagonal cracks in both concrete blocks and poured concrete foundation walls and for advice on assessing the severity of damage.

Under the peeling, the damage of the cinder block foundation wall is in my opinion superficial and cosmetic, not structural, but it does tell us.