How do you prevent water from coming in at the top of the cellar wall?
Answers:
Make sure you use hard clay (not topsoil), which you can get for free in a lot of places (may be called "fill"), but you'll have to look around. A landscaping supply company will definitely have it - stores like Home Depot and Lowes don't have it, in my experience. If you just need a little bit, you can dig some up from another place in your yard. Make sure you call your utility companies first if you are going to dig further than a few inches, though.
It helps to till the existing soil first, then add the clay. You've got to tamp it down hard and slope it away from the house, at least 6 inches out. You can then add topsoil on top of that and grow grass. The slope of the topsoil doesn't matter that much, as the water will flow through it to the clay.
As far as water coming from the bottom of the wall, there are a few possibilities - if you have a cinder block wall, it could be coming in at a higher point, but flowing through the holes in the cinder blocks and gathering at the bottom. Or, it's possible that the soil may have eroded that far.
I just completed a project like this at my house, and it worked very well.
A previous poster also made a good point about not using water sealers and gutter drainage.
Other answers:
tell the hobo to stop emptying his bladder
in you garden
tell the hobo to stop emptying his bladder
in you garden
What kind of house do you live in and where is it?
If you have a stone wall, that's kind of normal.
You could dig out the top few layers away from the wall on the outside and place a Vapour Barrier (local home centre, comes in a sheet and can get easy stick-in on stuff.
If there are cracks in the floor you could seal them... but realistically just be careful of what you store down there and keep things off the floor and you should be fine
Oh and Dehumidifier.
You should build up the ground around the foundation so that rainwater will runoff away from the house. You may even want to put tar on the area before putting the soil on, Don't use any of those watersealers that you paint on the inside of the foundation. they tend to trap the water in the blocks and cause more damage.
Make sure your leaders from the gutters are taking the water far enough away from the foundation.
In the old days we would dig down alittle and paint the wall with HENRYS TAR. I lived by the water and it sure helped me, that was 20 yrs ago guess there sonething new by now but I do know the tar works and its cheep..I dugg down about 2 ft all around the house just enough to get an old brush in there and did my thing.. let it sit over night then pushed the dirt back, low and behlod Dry.. ROB
paint the cellar wall