Basement Foundation pour lines/cold joints

[PulloutConeOfSilence]

I went and looked at a new home basement foundation for a friend. It has multiple locations with potential cold joints. I'm not terribly experienced at diagnosing concrete issues, so I'm not sure how concerned to be.

My current thoughts are:
-Residential construction is notorious for this kind of workmanship. I know "pour lines" as they call them are really common. I have a couple in my house. But these look far more distinct than any I've seen. Though, they will probably be less obvious once the moisture dries out.
-Up close I didn't really see any distinct lines or cracks at the color transitions. It was more of just a color change and excess moisture at these locations.
-There's likely no vertical rebar in the walls. So long as there's no net tension on the section, I would imagine he walls are fine, but if there ever is enough lateral pressure to cause net tension on the section, potential cold joints at these locations could be a big, expensive problem.

My question is, how bad is this? I know it's not a good thing, but I don't know if it's worth getting worked up over or not. As far as solutions, I know worst case the owner could push to have the walls removed and replaced. Short of that, I'm thinking the middle of the road solution to at least reduce he likelihood of issues is to have them use gravel backfill to try to reduce the worst case lateral pressure and increase drainage, use a membrane waterproofing system to prevent water infiltration if cracks did form, and ask for a longer warranty period on the foundation.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

 

[oldestguy]

I'd not be concerned as long as the floor system and most of the dead loads are in place before backfilling. I'd also be sure that a suitable footing drain system is in place, hopefully with a properly filtered bedding and pipe cover (gravel is not a filter). A geotech engineer can explain what to look for in a suitable filter and it likely won't be met by typical building codes written by architects and most engineers. That sequence will surely get some negative reaction from the contractor, but one might say "OK otherwise get cores and test the strength at those pour lines and install covering on all basement walls to hide things". Otherwise follow the backfilling timing as noted here. By the way "formadrain" also needs a filter covering.