If your home’s basement floods often, then installing drain tile might provide relief. A drain tile system can relieve pressure on its floors and walls while diverting groundwater away from seeping into your basement and redirect it safely away. But just how does drain tile work?
Drain tile may be misleading because it doesn’t actually resemble any type of tile; rather, the term refers to an underground network of perforated pipes positioned beneath a home or other structure to divert water away from building foundations and into collection pits, where sump pumps send it outside the property for disposal.
These drainage systems were first popularly employed in farming, where too much moisture could be just as detrimental to crops as too little moisture. Farmers would dig trenches around their fields and lay pipes to encourage water to move downward instead of pooling in the center of a field and damaging crops or erosion the soil. As people moved west and settled land, their use increased dramatically – they still exist today but are mostly employed to keep basements dry while protecting against damp soil issues.
Building codes typically mandate that drain tiles be installed beneath concrete slab floors when building a new home, while they can also help existing properties protect themselves against moisture issues. When installed to new properties, these systems are often buried in trenches running alongside foundation footers; pipes may be composed of different materials depending on where your property lies and the soil type; typically PVC pipes offer greater durability.
When added to an existing home, these systems are often installed beneath the basement floor and connected either to existing plumbing, or by using separate piping that has been concealed elsewhere. When adding such systems to older properties, care must be taken not to clog clay or concrete weeping tiles with debris that might make removal more challenging than anticipated.
Homeowners with no previous experience installing these systems can usually do it themselves, although it may require jackhammering out exterior walls to dig a trench around foundation and sump basin, then placing drain tile with washed gravel covering and then finally covering with concrete. For older houses that were never built with drain tiles, professionals can excavate down to footings and create drainage system connecting piping back into existing sewage piping and linking new sump pump with it.