Q. I feel our new home has

some serious problems, but our builder disagrees. The house is less than

6 months old, but we have ugly white deposits that are leaching out of

our chimney, a wing wall that juts from a corner of our home and a retaining

wall. I feel there must be something wrong for this to happen. The more

I scrub, the worse the problem gets. What is wrong, and what can be done

to fix the problem? - Andrew M., Loveland, Ohio.

A. Don't put the noose

around the builder's neck just yet. The white deposits you are seeing

are probably not his fault, although there might have been some things

he could have done during construction to minimize the presence of the

powder.

The first thing to realize

is that these mineral deposits are just an aesthetic problem. They do

not compromise the structural integrity of any of the masonry in and about

your new home, but chronic water that gets into masonry can cause problems

over time.

The white powder you see is

efflorescence. The brick, stone, concrete block, mortar etc. contain water

soluble salts that are the source of the white deposits. Soil behind retaining

walls can also contain these same salts.

These trapped salts are set

into motion when water enters masonry. The water dissolves the salts and

carries them through the masonry toward the surface. Sunlight and wind

draw the water to the surface, but as the water evaporates the salts are

left behind.

The salts contained in the

brick, mortar, stone and concrete block eventually exhaust themselves,

and the white mineral deposits simply go away. But salts within soil can

persist for decades.

Each time you try to wash the

chimney and wall surfaces to remove the salts, you actually compound the

problem. The water you use simply soaks into the masonry surfaces and

dissolves the salts to create more problems days later. The surfaces typically

look fantastic when wet, but the white powder appears again when the surfaces

dry.

To stop the efflorescence now,

you must stop all water from entering the masonry surfaces. This is somewhat

easy to do at the chimney and any exterior masonry walls, but far more

difficult to do with the retaining wall. If you stop the water, there

is no transport medium to carry the soluble salts to the surface where

you will see them.

The chimney and wing wall can

be treated with a silane/siloxane water repellent. They can also be coated

with a new clear masonry sealer that bridges cracks up to 1/8 inch. Using

these products in tandem virtually assures that you will stop water from

getting into the masonry.

The retaining wall that is

backfilled with dirt should have been treated with a waterproofing compound

that would have stopped water infiltration into the wall. That is very

hard to do now as the fill behind the wall will have to be removed and

the wall cleaned and allowed to dry before the back side of the wall can

be waterproofed. The builder should have done this when the wall was being

constructed. It would have taken minutes instead of the days it will now

take to stop the efflorescence.

I would not try to do any remedial

work until the weather moderates. You want days where the temperature

rises to 65 F or above to get excellent results from the sealants and

water repellents. Be sure to inspect the chimney crown for cracks that

might allow water to enter the chimney's masonry core. If you discover

cracks, you need a different elastomeric coating for the chimney crown.

I think you should have a discussion

with your builder to see if he will help you out with the retaining wall

fix. Perhaps he can excavate the fill and clean the wall and leave you

to apply the waterproofing compound. The builder can then backfill since

he has access to equipment that can do it rapidly and easily.

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