Applications

The most common new-construction application and the one where the details are entirely predictable, because they are artifacts of how the wall was formed.

Snap-tie holes run straight through the wall — every one is a direct path and every one has to be stripped of its cone and patched, not just covered. The cold joint at the footing is the single highest-leak-frequency detail in residential construction, because that is where hydrostatic head is greatest and where the pour discontinuity is. Honeycombing at the base of tall pours and around congested rebar is common and has to be filled before spraying.

Form fins and offsets need grinding flat — a sharp ridge produces a thin spot in the membrane exactly where it will get hit during backfill.

Spec: CSP 3–5 profile, patch ties and honeycomb, 7001 Primer, OR7K detail coat at the cove and cold joints, Badger Black 60 mil field / 80–100 mil at the footing cove and all penetrations, terminated above finished grade.

Block walls behave differently from poured concrete and need to be treated differently. The units are hollow, the mortar joints are the weak plane, and the assembly can hold and transmit water through the cores — which is why a block basement often shows dampness at a height that seems unrelated to the water table.

The surface itself is also wrong for a direct-sprayed membrane. An open block face and raked mortar joints give you a rough, pinholed substrate with no consistent thickness. A parge coat or block filler comes first — you are creating a continuous, closed surface for the membrane to bond to.

Older block foundations undergoing remediation frequently also need the mortar joints repointed and any step cracking evaluated structurally before waterproofing is worth doing.

Spec: Parge or block-fill to a continuous closed surface, profile, 7001 Primer, Badger Black at 60–80 mil field with 100 mil at the footing cove and penetrations.

A retaining wall carries water differently than a building wall: it is wet on one side by definition, and the failure that owners notice is usually not a leak but efflorescence, spalling, and freeze-thaw damage on the exposed face.

Waterproofing the buried face stops water from moving through the wall and carrying dissolved salts to the exposed side. That is what kills the appearance of a site wall and, over enough freeze-thaw cycles, the concrete itself.

Weep holes and drainage behind the wall matter more here than almost anywhere, because a retaining wall with no relief is being asked to structurally resist full hydrostatic load in addition to soil pressure. The membrane is not a substitute for that drainage.

Spec: Badger Black 60 mil on the buried face, 80 mil at the base and at every weep and drain penetration, terminated above grade. Drainage composite over the membrane before backfill.

Planters are one of the most demanding waterproofing applications there is and are consistently under-specified. A planter is a structure that is deliberately kept saturated, irrigated on a schedule, filled with soil that contains fertilizer salts and organic acids, and penetrated by drains at the bottom — the point of maximum head.

Elevator pits and sumps are the same problem in reverse: permanently below the water table, with a floor-to-wall joint that carries continuous pressure and a structure nobody can excavate to fix later.

Both call for a heavier build than a foundation wall and considerably more attention at penetrations and at the floor-to-wall cove, because a failure in either is effectively unrepairable from the outside.

Spec: Badger Black at 80–100 mil throughout, 120 mil at the floor-to-wall cove and every drain penetration, coved and continuous with no terminations below the water line. Detail with OR7K first.