Wanted to get some advise on why my beam pockets are made this way in my house. My builder does the outside brick below grade so when they designed the foundation the beam pocket is not really a pocket but a cut all the way through the foundation wall. I noticed that you could see brick and mortar on the back side of the beam and when I got my first good rain it leaked into the basement. First question is this design a normal design for builders? 2nd I had a company come out and repair this. Well it took them about 5 times of coming out to get the water to stop. They used some type of concrete to fill up the beam pocket and then they injected the area several times and used epoxy on some the the areas where it was leaking. I think they actually got that leak fixed, but now my other beam pocket is leaking and now leaking worse than the other side ever did. I guess my second question is I thought the injection method was used for cracks in foundation walls. Do you think this will work in this situation? If not what do you recommend?

Thxs

My first answer is: no, it's a TERRIBLE design. The beam pocket should not extend all the way through the concrete.

My second answer is that it was a mistake to completely fill the beam pocket. There should be space all around the beam, and the concrete or other material should not contact the beam on the sides and rear.

If the beam pocket is below grade as you imply, then the cure for this problem will be found outside, not inside. Excavate down past the beam pocket level, apply cement plaster parge to the bricks below grade, then two brush coats of bituminous dampproofing, and apply a waterproof membrane in the wet dampproofing, extending from grade to a foot below the beam pocket, and maybe two feet either side of it, and from the top of the beam pocket to within a couple of inches of grade. Just below grade, a flashing should be cut into a horizontal mortar joint, extending into the brick wall and at least 4 inches over the top of the parge coat/dampproofing/membrane. If it can be extended all the way to the back of the brick, it would be good. The flashing will help keep water from entering behind the parge coat and running down inside the wall.

It is also a good idea to completely remove any and all material that was placed within the beam pocket, and maybe this is best done at least in part from the outside, by removing a few bricks before applying the parge coat. There should be air space all around the beam (assuming it's a wood beam).

Hi,
We found out the same issue with our beam pocket: it was cut all the way to the brick ledge. The contracter proposed to us the following solution:
cut out the brick on each side of the beam, fill in the cavity wall gap with hydraulic cement, waterproof this area, and then have the brick replaced with weep rope at these two locations.
We are a little hesitate since this involves removing bricks at the bottom. Just wonder if you think this is a good solution or something simpler can be done? Thanks!

I'm the one that did the initial post on this and since they have fixed my water leak. What they did was tear off the brick in that corner where the beam pocket is at and come to find out they flashed the corner wrong. There was a gap in the corner so they re-flashed it correctly and put some kind of rubber media over the area and then rebricked it and it's been two years and no leaks.

On a side note - It is common in older construction to have wood joists sitting right on block or concrete. This is a bad idea for back then. It's even worse now if your contractor surrounds the end of your joist with concrete. This is creating a condition that will rot the end of the joist. It's not a huge deal if you can get in to replace it, but if it's encased in concrete in a pocket it's not so easy to replace.