waterproofing and insulating basement question

diybrad

i am almost done digging around my foundation (below grade basement). I live in nashville tn by the way. the front and side of the house a below grade and the back is a walk out. I am installing an exterior foundation drain that will sit about two inches lower than thetop of the footer. I will be back filling about 5ft of 1-1 1/2 washed gravel with some type of gravel cover (15# tar paper or landscape fabric. Not really sure what is best to use yet.

I am still wondering also what i should use as my water proof membrane. I Have some drylock in the basement but i am not happy with it. It seems to be cracking an the block joints when they expand and contract. I was looking at a product call AMES Blue Max. It seems to more like a rubber and can expand and contract.

I was think of using this then on top of it using 2" XPS insulating foam board and tapping/seaming the joints before i back fill with gravel.

Does anyone have any suggestions here or am i missing any steps?

Thanks
Brad

jklingel

At the drain pipe, are you covering it w/ a water permeable fabric, to let water in but keep (to some degree....) crap out? Then at the top of the fill, are you installing something (under a few inches of dirt) to shed surface water away from the house and to help water stay out of the gravel in the first place? That is what makes sense to me, anyway. I would run that stuff out several feet past the gravel, too. I see no reason to let water get near the gravel if you can avoid it, no?