Roger I just had the front wall of my basement dug up about 3 months ago. I also feel that water problems are best repaired from the outside. Water needs to be able drain, slow or no drainage allows it time to find the weakest link.
My basement is made of concrete block, it had poor drainage on the front because the construction garbage, insulation, pieces of wood, plastic, bottles and cans had been pushed into the hole along the outside wall and topped of by the clay they had dug up when digging the basement. There was also only about 4 inches of stone on top the footer drain pipe. Water doesn`t flow well or at all thru clay, it traps the water against the foundation, all the junk was dug out, by hand(2 men, 2 days) footer drain section was replaced, black flexible perforated pipe was was replaced with rigid perforated pipe,basement wall was resealed, clean out installed and the hole was filled to 1 foot from the surface with number 57 limestone and topped of with topsoil.
The water isn`t coming from inside the house, why try to stop the seepage from the inside? The repair is simple but labor intensive, a 2 foot wide trench dug down to the footer drain, if you can run the water of with tarps or something it is a do it yourself project to save cash if you are physically able to do it.