A gravity drain might be the solution to your wet basement problems

The gravity drain might be the solution to your wet basement problems.

If you have a home in an area with a high water table, or your planning to build a home in a place that you believe to have a high water table then you will need to think carefully about how you are going to control the water, especially when it is at its high points.

One of the easiest things to do to control high water around your home is to install what is called a “gravity drain”.

A gravity drain is exactly what it sounds like; it is a drain for water that works with gravity, the water flows down hill away from the house because of gravity. A gravity drain is the simplest form of water control.

There are a couple of things that you need to do to have a gravity drain and have it work properly;

• You must have enough fall away from the home so that water can flow freely away from the foundation. You have to remember that the gravity drain will be installed near the bottom of the foundation where the weepers are located.

• You want the end where the pipe empty’s the water to be in an area that can tolerate an abundance of water. Ditches or ponds or swampy area’s is obviously the best places to end them. Make sure that wherever you run it, it will not affect a neighbour’s home or neighbouring property.

• You must dig down to the weepers of the home and attach a “T” into the weeper. Then you extent that weeper to the location that you want it to terminate. Make sure that the pipe has at least ½ inch of slope per foot for the entire length. This will guarantee that the water will flow downhill away from the home.

• It’s good practice to place some stone at the end of the pipe; this will limit the amount of eroding that the water will do.

• You must place some sort of cover over the end, this will keep animals and debris out of it. You must make sure that the cover is porous enough so that the water can get out.

• You must make sure that the weeper line you install is a non-perforated line. This means that the gravity line will not have any holes in it where water can escape, that is different than the weeper that runs around your home which is porous.

Once you have installed the weeper and have backfilled properly around it you should notice fairly quickly if it is working like it should. A lot of places that have high ground water have water coming out of their gravity line all year round regardless of the season or the weather.

Rob Abbott
Operations Manager
Village Builders Inc.