Taping to fieldstone foundation?

[BeezFun]

Any thoughts on alternatives?

Thanks.

Can't you leave a dehumdifier on all the time, or at least use one to figure out how much water is coming in. If you get the RH down to where you want it and measure the water pulled out by the dehumidifier, you'll get an idea how big the problem is. I don't like capturing water behind plastic, then you'll have mold and mildew problems in that area between the plastic and wall. The only way to really solve it is probably waterproof from the outside, but that would be many $$$.

 

[SpringHollow]

In an old house, the sills rest directly on the stone/grout and that is where they are picking up the most of their moisture so i would not be worried about a 1 x1 wrapped in plastic touching the bottom side of the sill.

Another option - tack the 1 x1 plywood strip to the sill and then tape to that.

Ken

 

[jimmysisson]

Agree with SpringHollow. The moisture will move to the area of temperature difference, likely down near the floor. Plus gravity will carry down moisture that comes in through the stone work. If this is a temporary wall, and your sills are 24" above grade, go ahead and tack the poly to the sills and drape down the walls, ending in your french drain. Try that for a few months and see what happens. I doubt you'll get mildew behind the poly.
Dehumidifiers are spendy to run all the time. However a good 220v model is far cheaper to run than a consumer model.
Jim

 

[quicksandfarmer]

A huge amount of moisture can come through unsealed basement walls. The construction/heating system of the rest of the house determines whether that is a problem or not. Half of our old house's "basement" was equivalent to a crawl space because the dirt was less than 12" from the floor joists. Covering it and the walls with plastic made a big difference in moisture levels. To see if it is worth it, you can always tape up a small piece and see if you get condensation, how much and how quickly.

Ken

This is basically what I'm up against.

I probably shouldn't have described what I have as a "basement," it's a cellar. Imagine that you dug a hole about four feet deep with a shovel, and as you went you collected rocks and stacked them along the edges and piled the dirt you dug out against the outside. That's what I have. Even if there is no water flowing in it is very damp because there is nothing keeping out the moisture in the soil.

It is possible to "damp-proof" such a cellar, by pouring a concrete floor, filling the gaps in the rocks with mortar, and sealing the whole thing with a masonry paint. However, if you damp-proof and there is flowing water the damp-proofing makes things worse because it causes the water to accumulate and potentially undermine the foundation. I believe that I have controlled the water problem with perimeter drains, but I'm not positive, so I want to do temporary damp-proofing as a test. If it turns out that I am wrong and I have not solved the water problem, the damp-proofing will hold the water and I'll see where the problem is. It might be a year or two before I know for sure. Once I'm sure I can move forward with permanent damp-proofing.

The problem I'm having is how to attach something semi-permanently to the stone walls, nothing really sticks.

 

[Cantoo]

Draft Stop caulking will stick to the wall and will be removable later . I would use 2 concrete nails and fasten a vertical piece of 1x2 wood to the wall using concrete nails. Put a 1/2 bead of Draft Stop caulking to the back of the 1x3 before fastening it to the wall. Put your plastic up and then nail another 1x3 tight over the one nailed to the wall to seal things. The Drafy Stop caulking will peel off later and only marks you will have are from the few nails in the 1x3.

 

[hr3]

Here in Maine we have a lot of older houses like you have and what I have seen contractors do is this. For the floor they put down a very tough plastic fabric then put stone on top of it. Then they point the rocks and spray foam the walls.. It seems to work very well..
If your rocks are clean you could try useing some spray foam as glue to hold your polly to the walls.. the stuff sticks to anything..