Remedial Drainage Options

Remedial Drainage Options
A range of products are available to dry out and repair wet
basements with minimal excavation.
B
y nature, a basement is difficult to
waterproof. A porous concrete
structure built into the ground is
set up to leak.
“Basements are not designed,
intended, or built to be boats,” said
Joseph Boccia, vice president of Boccia
Inc., a New York-based waterproofing
company that has completed thousands
of projects. “Concrete will not naturally
keep water out. Submerged in water, they
will eventually leak. This fact has been
putting food on my family's table since
1955. So, if you can’t seal out the water,
then you have to drain it. This is where
interior basement drainage comes in.”
These drainage systems collect water
before it can enter the basement, and
redirect it to a sump pump. “If there’s no
water outside, there won’t be any water
inside,” Boccia says simply.
Installed on the interior side of the
footing or basement wall, these interior
drainage systems greatly reduce the mess
Photo Courtesy Ken Cotten/Waterproof.com
Interior Drainage Systems Can Eliminate Damp Basements
and expense associated with repairing
leaky basements.
Melissa Morton, an editor at the
Basement Health Association, says,
“There are many different systems with
different details but the concept is the
same: collect the water that comes into
the basement, control it, redirect it, and
pump it out.” She explains that interior
drainage systems can be categorized by
the location of the drain tile and whether
the system is open or closed.
Photos Courtesy Ken Cotten/Waterproof.com
Hollow baseboard products divert seepage to the
sump pump with zero excavation needed.
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WATERPROOF!
Location Of The Drain Tile
The three common locations of the
drain tile are: on the slab, on the footing,
and beside the footer.
Ken Cotten, owner of Waterproof.
com, markets a full range of interior
drainage products.
“We approach
waterproofing as good, better, and
best,” he explains. “It comes down to
what elevation that you’re doing the
waterproofing.”
In the vast majority of cases, water
entering a basement comes in through
the walls. (Occasionally, a high water
table will force water up through cracks
in the middle of the floor, but Cotten
describes this as “very, very rare,” and
is beyond the scope of this article.) So
the question becomes, at which elevation
does the drainage system capture this
water?
The least expensive are on-the-slab
drain tiles that collect water at the joint
where the wall meets the floor. These
“hollow baseboard” product are simple
enough some homeowners install them
themselves. It simply collects the water
coming in through the cove joint and
channels it to the sump pit.
Emecole, a basement repair supply
company based near Chicago, Ill.,
markets this type of product, as does
Waterproof.com. Boccia’s Hollow Kick
Molding also falls into this category,
although it’s usually combined with a
perforated pipe to create a deep channel
system.
Lou Cole, owner of Emecole, points
out that in addition to saving money,
baseboard systems mean less mess.
“There’s no need to break up floors,
compromising structural integrity, as a
simple in-floor groove is all that’s needed
to install the baseboard and divert
seepage to the sump pump,” he says.
“This system can be used with block,
stone or poured foundation walls.”
Photo Courtesy Samme Cuthbertson/Emecole
On-Footer Systems
Another class of drainage system
sits on top of the footer. It’s a nice
Summer 2016
15
Deep Systems
Sub-slab or deep channel systems are
considered the best option for saturated
soils or failed drain tile. The floor slab is
typically removed 12-16 inches from the
exterior walls, and a trench is dug beside
the footer. A new drain tile is placed in
clean gravel, and the concrete replaced.
Traditionally, perforated pipe was the
product of choice, but other options are
now available that claim to move water
more efficiently and resist roots and
clogging.
Waterproofing contractors debate
whether it’s best to install the tile beside
or below the footer.
Jason Weinstein, owner of Budget
Dry Waterproofing in Killingworth,
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WATERPROOF!
Conn. says basement floors in older
Connecticut houses are traditionally too
thin to support an on-the-footing drain
system. “My experience has shown that
systems installed where they bisect the
top of the footing or slightly beneath
the top of the footing work with more
reliability.”
Joe Boccia, who has spent 40 years
keeping homes and businesses dry, says,
“If they are digging a trench, they might
as well set the drain tile deep enough to
relieve hydrostatic pressure. Sub-floor
drainage systems relieve the hydrostatic
pressure that builds up outside of the
wall and below the basement floor.”
Dan O’Conner, of HydroArmor
Waterproofing Systems in Woolwich
Township, New Jersey, agrees deeper is
sometimes better. “The trench needs to
be deep enough and wide enough for the
pipe to be set where the water is,” he says.
“The drainage system also needs to be a
continuous system to channel the water.”
Boccia explains how his company’s
Hollow Kick Molding product works:
“A deep channel filtered perforated
pipe relieves the hydrostatic pressure
that would have pushed the water into
the building envelope. Then we drain
any residual water with our patented
Hollow Kick Molding which protects
and enhances the appearance of the
floating slab cove detail. This gives us the
opportunity to guarantee the job for the
life of the structure.”
Cotten markets a competing system
called Fast Track. It’s rigid, which
Photo Courtesy Stacy Moskowitz/Boccia Inc.
Photo Courtesy Ken Cotten/Waterproof.com
pour.
Installing an on-footer drainage
system requires removing four or five
inches of concrete floor slab adjacent to
the exterior walls, and replacing that part
of the slab with new concrete once the
product is in place.
Photo Courtesy Ken Cotten/Waterproof.com
compromise that controls the water
before it reaches floor level, but also
eliminates the need to dig a deep trench.
When a drain tile is already in place
beside the footer, and all that is needed
is a more efficient system for moving
moisture from the inside face of the wall
to the drain tile, dimple products are a
great choice. Drain-EZE and HydroChannel are designed specifically for this
applications.
Cotten says, “Instead of collecting
the water above the slab, you’ve gone
down four inches, and are collecting
water from above and below the floor in
a single profile.”
If the drain tile is clogged or
missing, other products can provide
water collection and a conduit to move
it to the sump pit and still fit on top of
the footer. Examples include Drain-Main
and VersaDrain.
These products are usually made
from heavy duty PVC or polyethylene
to provide exceptional flow rates and
withstand the weight of the concrete
Photo Courtesy Samme Cuthbertson/Emecole
On-footer repair profiles can
include its own conduit (below) or
consist of a simple diverter (right).
makes it easier to hold a level line; and
has no corrugation, so it doesn’t collect
sediments and allows water to flow more
easily. The trapezoidal shape moves
small amounts of water quickly, but as
water volume builds up, the capacity of
the drain tile increases proportionately.
He claims this product requires “a lot
less labor, with less digging and hauling
heavy fill in and out of the basement.”
Open vs. Closed
Historically, basement drainage
systems were left as an open system.
Any water that built up on the inside of
the wall would be able to drain down
into the system and to the pump. Many
waterproofing contractors still use
this philosophy. Open systems have a
floating slab with a gap—typically ½”
to ¾”—around the perimeter of the
basement between the floor slab and the
foundation wall.
“An open system was the way the
waterproofers installed their drain
systems,” says Hugo D’Esposito of A.M.
Shield Waterproofing.
The drawback to open systems is
that while they allow moisture to go
down, they also allow radon and other
soil gases to come up into the basement
and upper levels of the house.
Closed drainage systems, on the
other hand, leave no gap. “These
systems can even go one step further by
incorporating vapor barriers on the wall
and sub-slab fans to remove moisture and
other gases,” D’Esposito says. However,
closed systems make it more difficult to
handle interior moisture problems.
“One group wants to seal the floor,
the other wants to drain it,” summarizes
Boccia.
One of those groups concerned
about open systems allowing pollutants
to enter the house is the Basement Health
Association (BHA). “The problems
in the basement and crawlspace go
beyond moisture,” says John Bryant,
BHA president and owner of AquaGuard
Waterproofing in Beltsville, Maryland.
“As basement waterproofing contractors,
you have to think about radon, mold and
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Photos Courtesy Hugo D’Esposito/A.M. Shield Waterproofing
Closed drainage systems
prevent radon and
other pollutants from
entering the living space.
They require vapor
barriers on the wall and
careful sealing of all
terminations.
pollutants in the basement air.”
Dave Hill of Spruce Environmental Technologies in
Massachusetts says the biggest issue is radon. “You have to
understand a radon mitigation system won’t work with an open
drainage system,” he says. “The waterproofing system has to be
closed in order to deal with the radon issue.”
Radon is a radioactive gas found in some soils. At high
enough concentrations, it can cause cancer. “If a waterproofing
contractor cuts a gap into the basement floor and then the
homeowner develops a radon problem, the waterproofer could
be to blame,” Hill says. “It could mean lawsuits for waterproofing
contractors.”
To address this issue, Boccia recently redesigned their
product to include a vapor retarder which impedes pollutants
from entering into the basement environment.
The
Last Step
in
Other hybrid radon mitigation/waterproofing systems use
wall vapor barriers and sub-floor fans to move radon out of the
living space.
Open vs. Closed
As with all waterproofing jobs, it all comes down to cost.
Cotten says simple, above-slab hollow baseboard systems
can be as inexpensive as $20 per lineal foot. Other products
are significantly more expensive, and labor costs increase
significantly as well.
Closed systems are the priciest. “Closed systems are very
difficult to install effectively, both from material and labor
cost, especially in older homes with stone foundations,” says
Weinstein, the Connecticut contractor. “Other costly obstacles
to doing closed systems include oil tanks, water heaters and
furnaces as each contractor handles these differently and there’s
no uniform standard for where and how they are placed in a
basement or crawlspace. As awareness about radon spreads
through the public, there will be an eventual push for closed
drainage systems.”
Still, Cotten says remedial drainage is a profitable niche
that’s easy to get into. “When I got into the business, it cost a
great deal of money to get into this line of work. Not anymore.
We work with the ‘small guys.’ Hybrid products are easy to
install, and there’s virtually unlimited growth.” 
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