Is this poor workmanship on this house foundation or what?

[mickey1]

I need help in assessing the workmanship on my house which is about 7 years old. I found puddles of water under my crawl space so I got under my house during a rain storm and watched water just pour into my crawl space from about half a dozen places.

I have dug out the dirt and got down to the foundation. The brick work looks terrible below grade and sort of acceptable above grade. I am going to waterproof the foundation (you can see in the one picture I have done one side of the house) and install a french drain in front of the foundation right below the waterproofing to collect water. The drain will be led out to the other parts of my yard.

I am interested in hearing from professionals about the quality of this foundation. Is it acceptable? I called the builder and he simply excused it saying it was fine. I plan on sending him pictures, but I need to know if this is acceptable work or not? I am spending about 400 dollars on all the materials to do the whole back wall and most of the side wall.

Is there any recourse for me? Thanks for your input and time. Here are the pictures. I hope the links work. It will only allow me to attach 5 pics at a time, so I will post again directly below with some more pics.

[mickey1]

More pics.

[mickey1]

And a couple more.

[pushkins]

It may not look pretty but the idea of a foundation is just that, a foundation to hold up the building. While it does look sloppy (at best) there doesn't seem to be anything that suggests structural problems. Often (as in your pictures) bricklayers need to "pack" bricks and mortar to establish a level bricklaying platform, hence the turned bricks and extra mortar in places.
I always insist on "neat" work on all my brick work from the foundation up, but turned bricks is par for the course regardless.
Your water issue is a separate matter altogether, no one can stop the seeping of water into a crawlspace without waterproofing or french drains around the perimeter, in many cases these are not requirements of home construction with crawlspaces.
What you are doing is an excellent solution to your problem, especially the French drain that will be 90% of the solution.

[mickey1]

Originally Posted by pushkins

It may not look pretty but the idea of a foundation is just that, a foundation to hold up the building. While it does look sloppy (at best) there doesn't seem to be anything that suggests structural problems. Often (as in your pictures) bricklayers need to "pack" bricks and mortar to establish a level bricklaying platform, hence the turned bricks and extra mortar in places.
I always insist on "neat" work on all my brick work from the foundation up, but turned bricks is par for the course regardless.
Your water issue is a separate matter altogether, no one can stop the seeping of water into a crawlspace without waterproofing or french drains around the perimeter, in many cases these are not requirements of home construction with crawlspaces.
What you are doing is an excellent solution to your problem, especially the French drain that will be 90% of the solution.

Thank you for your input. I was wondering if there would be any future implications as far as structural soundness, and you answered that question without me asking.

By the way, I see you are in NC. I am in Kings Mountain near Gastonia.