How to Use PVC Gutters to Channel Water in a Basement

Place a carpenter’s level onto the floor of the basement and drag it around the slab’s surface to determine if the slab is level or if it slopes. If it slopes, find the lowest point and mark it with a piece of chalk. Choose the best positioning for the gutter trench that will channel the water from the high points of the floor to the low point, and then draw parallel lines in the floor along the channel route for channel placement. Separate the lines by the width of the PVC gutter plus 6 inches.

Create a sloped floor if your basement slab is level, using a concrete overlay to make a subtle incline descending 1 inch for every 10 feet from the edges of the floor towards the center. Cover the floor with an adhesive bonding agent spread with a paint roller. Let the bonding adhesive dry until it loses its wet look. Mix the concrete overlay mix in a large bucket, adding enough water to the dry mix to make it spreadable. Use an electric drill with a grout mixer attachment to mix the overlay. Spread the overlay onto the floor over the bonding agent, with a trowel, sloping the height of the overlay onto the concrete with an even slope that ends along a line running down the center of the basement. Allow the overlay to cure hard overnight, and then mark the location for your gutter with the two chalked parallel lines down the center low point of the slab.

Put on safety goggles, a particle mask and a pair of work gloves. Cut though the slab along the chalked lines using a walk-behind concrete saw. You can rent one from a home improvement store. The saw will also cut through any reinforcing material in the slab such as steel wire or rebar. Break the cut concrete strip into pieces with a sledgehammer and then remove the debris.

Dig a trench for your PVC gutter with a trench spade. Make certain that the trench is the same width and depth as the gutter. You’ll also need to dig beneath the foundation wall to the outside in order to place a connecting pipe to draw off the water channeled from the basement. The trench could also be directed to empty into an existing floor drain with sump pump.

Lay the gutter in the trench, and then snap on the PVC drain top over the gutter. You can cut the gutter to the needed length to fit in the trench with a hacksaw, or join multiple pieces of gutter together by wiping the overlapping edges with a PVC primer, waiting about five minutes and applying a PVC cement to the overlapping edges to glue the separate gutter pieces together.

Fill in the trench surrounding the gutter with soil, making sure that the top of the gutter is level with the top of the concrete slab. Leave about 2 inches of space from the top of the soil to the level of the concrete slab surrounding the sides of the gutter, for pouring more concrete to hold the gutter in place.

Fill the remainder of the trench with concrete overlay mix, leveling it with the surrounding concrete slab and the top of the gutter with the trowel. Allow the overlay to cure overnight.

Dig a trench from the exit hole beneath the foundation side to a point where you wish to drain the channeled water from the basement, using the trench spade. Lay PVC pipes along the trench, connecting one end of the pipe to the gutter using the PVC primer and cement. Cover the trench with soil after completing the connection.