How to make drainage in the basement

To see a whole lake in your basement is very unpleasant. If there is a lot of moisture, it means that there will be damp walls, furniture, clothes. But besides these troubles, the water in the basement can lead to the destruction of the foundation of the whole house. So how to be in this case? There is only one way out - this is the arrangement on the drainage site. But not everyone knows that such systems can be mounted in the interior. This article is just about how to make drainage in the basement.

What is needed to create

If the basement of your private house, garage or other buildings suffer from constant flooding, then the creation of an internal drainage system would be the best way out of this situation. But before you start work, you should conduct training.

The first step is to examine the basement and prepare a plan for the future drainage system. To draw up a scheme, you need to know some additional characteristics. First, in order to calculate everything correctly, it is necessary to find out the depth of the groundwater. Secondly, it is desirable to know the properties of the soil under the house (or other structure).

Tip! All these surveys are best done at the planning stage of the house itself. If the building has already been built, then it will be more difficult to find out the quality of the soil under it. To do this, wells will have to be drilled to a depth of five meters in the immediate vicinity of the foundation.

Having obtained the necessary information, it is possible to calculate the depth to which the drainage pipes should be laid. You will also orient yourself with the drains themselves, or rather, with their characteristics: what diameter, from what material, and what holes should be in the pipes.

Also at the preliminary stage it is necessary to prepare all the necessary tools and materials in the work. You may need:

• from tools: level, shovel (bayonet and shovel), bucket or stretcher;
• of materials: the drainage pipes themselves, filter fabric (geotextiles), gravel, sand.

If you want to make a more efficient and fast working drainage system, then you can provide installation of a special pump in it. The drainage unit is capable of pumping out all the water from the basement in a short time. But it is worth remembering that such pumps cost money and need manual control (you yourself will turn it on and off). Therefore, it is better and cheaper to make a gravity drainage system.

Tip! Even with a temporary power outage the system will not work, as the pump will not turn on.

Progress

After drawing up a plan and preparing all the necessary tools and materials, you can start creating your own water drainage system. The internal drainage of the basement itself is not very different from the external. Here also, drains are laid to a certain depth, which will take the water out of the basement. The difficulty lies in the fact that all work will be carried out in the interior, where there is not always enough free space.

The work itself will look like this:

1. Clears space for work. If the basement has a flooring, then it must be dismantled. You should also take out all the objects or place them in a place where the laying of drainage pipes will not be carried out.
2. Further we carry out a marking, according to the plan made in advance.
3. The next step will be digging trenches. All work is done manually with shovels. It is easier to take out the excavated soil with buckets or, if there is a large door to the street, with a stretcher. If you intend to remove the collected water beyond the perimeter of the basement, then you should make a hole in the foundation. The fact is that the trenches for drainage systems in the basement are not made deeper than half a meter. This depth may not be enough to lay the pipe under the foundation, without making holes in it.
4. In some cases it is better not to remove the water collected by the drainage system beyond the perimeter, but to lower it into the ground directly in the basement. In such a situation, you will have to manually dig an additional well. It makes no sense to make it too big and deep, because you have already gone deep into the ground (to the height of the basement).
5. Now you should prepare the bottom of the trench for laying the pipes. First of all, the soil is thoroughly tamped. If this is not done, then over time the soil will settle, and the effectiveness of the system will fall. Next, fit a layer of geotextile or other filter material. This measure is necessary to prevent small particles of silt from entering the surface of drains. If you do not use a filter cloth, the system will quickly silt.
6. Next, the crushed stone is laid in a layer of 20 cm. At the same time, you should not forget about the slope, under which the drainage pipes should lie. It must be at least 3 mm per meter. The bias is made in the direction of the exit pipe system from the basement or in the direction of the location of the well.
7. After filling the rubble layer and checking the slope, you can mount the system itself. For drainage most often use special plastic pipes. Fittings are made of the same material, with the help of which they unite all elements of the system into a single whole. A layer of gravel is also piled on top of the pipes, and the geofabric that is laid on the bottom is wrapped on top of the whole “cake”. After that you can fill the ground and lay the flooring.

Tip! If there is a drainage well in the system, you can purchase a ready-made plastic construction or lay it out yourself from the material at hand. The main thing is that the well does not have a bottom (if GWL allows). Such a device will facilitate the absorption of water in the soil.

You can install and sealed container, only in this case, without a drainage pump you can not do. He will need to pump the accumulated water in the well. But in this case, you will need to bring the pipe out, otherwise there will be nowhere to pump out. In addition, the installation of an airtight container requires constant monitoring of its fullness, so most of the owners of country houses prefer gravity drainage system.

Video

This video shows how to drill a well in the basement to drain drainage water:

This video is about arranging a basement drainage system with a drainage pump: