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I have a 125+ year old house with a fieldstone and poured concrete basement. There are a couple old pipes coming through the basement wall I would assume are from an old well that was filled in 75 years ago. When we have a big snow melt or a good rain the pipes drip water (I would assume the pipe are rotted in the ground or maybe even cut off).

The previous owner stuffed plastic bags in the pipe as shown in the image but that certainly does not solve the problem! Digging up outside by the wall is not an option and for 1 pipe there is not enough lip to put a cap on.

Can I use a spray foam to fill these in and expect it to be watertight?

Any other suggestions?

enter image description here

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It looks like at least some of the leakage is from around those pipes. If so, chipping them free and resealing the hole with hydraulic cement may be the best fix.

While they're free, you could put a pipe wrench on them and see if they can be unscrewed and pulled in so you're just patching a simple hole.

As far as plugging the tube goes, if needed: foam might work and is reversable, but hydraulic cement might be the right answer there too and more permanent. Or epoxy putty.

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  • I would expect water to find its way around hydraulic cement too. IMO the right way to seal that hole would be to dig down outside and seal it there.
    – Huesmann
    Commented Apr 8, 2023 at 14:02
  • Hydraulic cement expands as it cures, which makes a pretty good seal to surrounding cement in most cases. Yes, waterproofing from outside is generally better, and might make removing the pipes easier by letting you attack them with a recip saw, but for the small trickle we're seeing in the photo I'm not sure it's worth the effort. Not sure it isn't, either, but I'd try the lazy fix first.
    – keshlam
    Commented Apr 8, 2023 at 14:14

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