Who knows about exterior waterproofing a retaining wall/ brick wall?

I need to coat the bottom row of cinder blocks around outside the house with...something. We had a HECK of a storm last night and water managed to get into the basement. Best I can figure the water pooled against the bricks and seeped through a crack. Oddly, it drained out rather quickly on its own. I'm already working on diverting water further away from the house, so that is solved. What I want is to coat the bricks with something to make them watertight against the next tsunami. Only the bottom row of bricks touches dirt, and only the last 3' of wall are under any dirt (half way up the bricks).

The only thing I've ever seen used is just old fashioned tar. Is that still the best choice? I was just going to dig the dirt away from the wall, clean it up really well, and slather something on the concrete foundation, across the mortar joints, and up the bricks.

Here's what the wall looked like while we renovated last year:

And finished with the dirt filled in after construction last year:


The yard somehow flooded last night, which I still can't believe happened due to how it slopes gently away from the house. The water came into the basement at the left side. You can't tell from the photo, but the right side is high enough to not be a water issue. The left wall is already waterproofed (saw the builder do it), so the only area left uncoated is the single brick line. We think leaves dammed up in the left side of the yard and channeled water back towards the house.

I don't care what it looks like, I just want to seal the bricks so I can have enough time to build an ark next. Tar? Flex seal? Gorilla snot? Blue RTV?

If i was taking on the project...

I would put in a french drain with pipes installed lower than the floor.  And have it drain downhill to another level.

It wouldn't be than much digging.   I did it on a home in 1980, and its still working great.

Back then: one heavy coat of manually troweled roofing tar on block wall and side of concrete floor. .  Then a run of 6 mil plastic with no breaks running down to bottom of french drain ditch and up other side.  Drain pipe on plastic.  Gravel on drain pipe.  Fiberglass mat on gravel.  Back fill.  Slope top away from structure.   Check to see it gutter is needed to handle roof runoff.

To make it look nice on the back above the surface level, you could custom cut Hardie panels to cover the plastic.  You don't want the plastic exposed to the elements and sun. The hardie will actually help get the water away from the blocks and down to the   drain.  Hardie could go from bottom of siding to a few inches below the backfill.Paint to match.

One day job if you have all the materials on-site.  Figuring manual digging since site is so fresh.

YMMV.

Water inside sucks. If you've got positive slope away from the house and the downspouts divert the water away from the house you should be 95% of the way out of this mess. 
 

You've got to offer water an easier path than into the house. Dig down below the slab elevation and coat the side of your block with waterproofing. Not sealer. Not water repellent. Not paint. Not roofing tar. Waterproofing.
 

Then add a dimpled plastic panel with filter fabric against the newly waterproofed edge (with filter fabric facing the dirt). Next to the wall place a perforated PVC or corrugated pipe wrapped in gravel and a sock that will keep silt out of the pipe - most importantly run that pipe with some slope so it can can flow to daylight by gravity. At the uphill end of the pipe, add a clean out riser with a cap so you can flush it out periodically with a garden hose. 
 

Give the water someplace else to go and it'll go there reliably. 

OHSCrifle said:

Water inside sucks. If you've got positive slope away from the house and the downspouts divert the water away from the house you should be 95% of the way out of this mess. 

Got the 95% handled already, the 5% is what got me this time. Ground slopes away from the house, downspouts all have buried pipes that run to the back of the property, gutters clean. There's already a French drain along the left wall. There was a bunch of leaves and yard debris that dammed up the side yard, shunting water back towards the house to an area by the conduit where the ground only slopes away gently. Last night an incredible amount of water came off the sloped front yard and around the house (I channeled the side yards years ago to divert water around the house). I've been obsessed with drainage around the house for years, which is why this took me by surprise.

Looking around the neighborhood I found several areas where the streets flooded over the tops of the curbs, which might explain the larger than normal amount of water in our front yard. I keep our curbs clear and flowing free, so the downpour must have been Biblical. Gravel was washed down the road an amazing distance from the driveway it came from. It rained so bad around here it derailed a train: https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/11/us/georgia-train-derail-delta/index.html

Any suggestions for which waterproofing product to use? All I keep finding is interior waterproofing stuff.

The stuff I see on big blue and big orange websites are not products I have experience with. This is a commercial product that is familiar to me:

https://www.wrmeadows.com/concrete-waterproofing/fluid-applied/

OHSCrifle said:

The stuff I see on big blue and big orange websites are not products I have experience with. This is a commercial product that is familiar to me:

https://www.wrmeadows.com/concrete-waterproofing/fluid-applied/

Excellent, now I know what qualities for look for. My GRM idea was to use an old crockpot to heat up roofing tar and slather it on. I'll shelve that idea for now.