How to Add a Drain in Foundation Tile

Find a spot on your property that is a little lower than your house. Drive a stake into the ground to mark this spot. This is the place where your drain will discharge its water.

Call the utility companies and inform them of your plans. They will tell you if there are any buried pipes or wires in the places you plan to dig. Cutting into a buried pipe or wire will result in expensive and difficult repairs and is also quite dangerous.

Dig a ditch around your entire foundation as close to it as you can get. A backhoe will make the job relatively easy. This ditch should be 2 feet wide and 6 feet deep if your house has a basement. If your house is slab-on-grade it should be 2 feet wide by 2 feet deep.

Dig a second ditch running from any point on the first out to the stake that you planted. This ditch should be as deep as the first at the start, and slope downhill from that point.

Measure the length of the second ditch. Buy drain tile, which is a pipe with holes cut into it, that is this long. Set the drain tile into the second ditch.

Fill the ditches with gravel, to within 1 foot of the top. The gravel must be at least 1 inch wide. The gaps between the small stones will channel water down to the drain tile, where it will drain away from the foundation.

Cut the filter fabric into shapes that will exactly cover the tops of the trenches. Lay the fabric on top of the gravel in the trenches. Fill the remaining space in the trenches with soil. The filter fabric will prevent soil and small rocks from washing into the trenches and clogging them up.