Drainage Options for a Basement Drain

Exterior footing drain

• Exterior footing drains are an option for draining a basement. Exterior drains work by draining the water from the basement to an exterior drain pipe that leads to a storm drain. They are sometimes set up with a sump pump that carries the water up to the surface. In most cases, these drains are undesirable due to the storm drains not being installed deep enough. If the storm drain is not deep enough, the water will have to travel uphill to get to the drain. Another problem with the external drain is that the drain pipes will eventually clog with dirt since they are external to the basement. This clogging problem will also be present if a sump pump is used.

Interior footing drain

• The interior footing drain is installed in cases where a storm drain is not present, or if a sump pump is not desirable. The interior footing drain is installed under the concrete on the inside of the foundation. To do this the concrete next to the foundation will need to be removed with a jackhammer. A bed of gravel is laid in this trench with a perforated drain pipe installed. Concrete is re-laid on top of this with a gap along the wall for the water to flow into. This type of drain eventually suffers from clogging and the displace dirt that clogs the drain pipe can also lead to foundation problems.

Baseboard system

• A base board draining system is one of the more effective systems and is the least invasive. This system can only be used in the case of a monolithic basement slab. A base board system uses a series of vinyl base boards that are attached to the basement wall. The wall will have weep holes drilled that allow that water in the wall to drain out into the base board. The base boards have a draining system built in that directs the water to a sump pump that carries the water out and away from the house.