HELP! MY DRAIN TILE SYSTEM IS NOT WORKING

About 60% of the homes we work on have a drain tile system installed.  It's either bone-dry or running all of the time and the home is still having moisture issues.

This is the inside of a drain tile pipe where it drains into a sump basket to be pumped back out into the yard.  When the water moves through your wall, it also brings in dirt and sand which can clog the pipes or destroy the pump.  This system would need extensive work to fix the pipe system and would only add time until the system needs to be "fixed" again.  Have you ever wondered why the sidewalk next to your home is sloping towards the house?  The base is "washing" away creating voids and a sinking sidewalk or steps.

Choosing exterior Real Waterproofing stops water before it can enter your home, it keeps the dirt and sand outside where it should be.

I love this photo, this is a fully functioning drain tile system, the home was built in the 80's so this system was installed when the home was new.

The basement is fairly large with a lot of headroom so the owners had it finished years ago and for a long time it was a nice dry space.  Unfortunately over time, the foundation settled or the extreme ground conditions we see in Minnesota, made cracks in the foundation.

The two photos show the same home and the drain tile water management system installed in the basement.  The basement was finished but the basement flooded after a large rainstorm and the drywall and some of the insulation was removed.  The box outside is a mouse trap, the arrow is pointing to a crack between two cinder blocks.

During the rain storm, the drain tile system was able to pump some of the wall water back outside, cinder block walls are hollow, they fill with water and it should go to the underfloor pipe system that sends it to the sump basket where it gets pumped outside.

The dark area is water and moss, it loves this area where the drain tile is draining but guess what?  Over time the water has found the outside crack and it flows back into the basement.

Water likes the path of least resistance, it's filling the block cores, some might be getting to the sump basket but most of its moving straight through to the basement floor.  If we had to guess we'd say the blocks have filled with sand and dirt in this area, see the dark stain under the insulation, the water level in the blocks is pretty high!

Real Waterproofing starts on the outside, stopping water before it moves through these cracks.

This homeowner had a extremely wet corner in the basement built with cinder blocks.  The home also had an interior underfloor drain tile waterproofing system but they was still getting a ton of water on the floor in the corner.

Trying to get to the source, he found that his blocks had filled with sand, dirt and chunks of mortar from when the block was laid.

These blocks were filling with water but the holes going to the drain tile were plugged, the path of least resistance was to flood the basement above the floor.

This is the same corner of the basement but it's the exposed interior drain tile system.  The green hose is there to suck up water that is everywhere.  You can see the wall footing below the busted out floor.

This drain tile pipe is caked with fine sediment and unable to collect the large flow of water during rain storms, surprisingly it's fairly clean on the inside the water just can't make it into this pipe system.

The homeowner went with Real Waterproofing, stopping water outside the foundation, other contractors just wanted to rip out the existing system and start over.

If you look close you can see water streaming out right under the gray electrical box.  The white vertical pipe is the discharge pipe for a drain tile pump and the black cord is the power line.  The pump was working but when water comes in the hollow block wall, it also brings in dirt and grit.  Eventually this will fill up the blocks, blocking the water from getting into the drain-tile system or slowing down the flow rate.

This is in an underground parking garage, replacing the drain-tile is not an option since the floor is a structural part of the building.  The owner decided on exterior waterproofing using bentonite to seal up the wet walls and stop the water.

Unfortunately this customer chose an interior beaver cove waterproofing system but they still had wet basement issues.  First the waterproofer didn't fully cover the area where they buried the sump basket, water can be seen flowing on the bottom right of the photo.

Next the waterproofer put in a plastic channel on the floor, we call this a cove waterproofing system, it's meant to channel water towards the sump basket and sump pump.  These have no slope so stinky water is usually sitting on the bottom.

Lastly, the bubbling and dark staining on the walls, mold and mildew, indicate areas where water is moving through the walls above the floor level, this system will never collect all of that.  When you see that much damage, the bottom blocks are usually full of dirt and sand, water will not flow into the cove system if the channels are blocked.

Yes those floor tiles are asbestos, when any cutting or removal is done, it needs to be done with the proper abatement procedures.