Basement Drain Keeps Backing Up?
Hello everyone. I’m Caleb with Dansie Design Build. We’re here at a house in West Jordan, Utah, and we’re repairing this basement walkout drain so it won’t have any more flooding problems. I want to show you what we do if the basement drain backs up.
Basement Walkout Entry Problem
All right, so we’re here at this basement walkout entry. It’s in the backyard of this home, to be specific. And you can see here that we’ve got the chute set up to pour this concrete down here later today. And then down at the bottom of the stairs, we’ve got the new landing all prepared for the concrete.
Around the edges, you can see the footing supporting the concrete walls on three sides of this landing. The gravel will hold the water in the middle while it percolates into the surrounding soil.
Basement Drain Fix
The basement drain is at the center of the gravel area, and a five-gallon bucket is underneath. The water flows into the drain and then into that bucket, then into the gravel, and then into the soil.
This gravel is three feet deep, so there are a lot of voids around those rocks where water can temporarily be held while it’s percolating into the soil.
Why Did the Basement Drain Back Up?
I wanted to show you why this was having problems and how to fix it.
We have the drain that was previously installed here. There’s just this black pipe and then this little drain here. There’s even a piece of concrete still stuck on its side. The water came straight down into the pipe, which only had dirt at the bottom. Since there was nowhere for the water to go, it started piling up and flooding the basement.
This is why adding all this gravel material will improve the water flow and the volume of rainwater that this drain can handle.
Pre-Concrete Pouring Protection
I also wanted to show you this little plastic piece on here that covers and protects the top of the drain while we’re pouring concrete. We peel this off later, and then you can take these screws off, open that drain up, and then reach in and clean out anything that ends up in this five-gallon bucket area if needed.
It’s a massive improvement over the tiny 1 1/2 or 2 inch tube that’s not repairable and not accessible.
Got a Basement Drainage Issue?
If you have a flooded basement, we’d love to discuss how we can help you. You can reach us on our website, request a project consultation there, and we’ll contact you.
Thanks for your time today, and we’ll talk to you later.
