Keep Your Home Basement Dry with Drain Tiles

Your basement is usually where all the moisture and water goes; gravity draws them down to the lowest part of your house. This can be problematic for those who want a dry basement. Fortunately, drain tiles exist.

The Need to Have Drainage Tiles in Vancouver

Mould is one of the biggest risks in Vancouver housing today. Mould can form anywhere there is sufficient moisture. Slightly damp laundry, open windows, or even leaky corners can all cause enough moisture to jump-start a serious mould problem overnight.

Vancouver's weather is notoriously unpredictable. Although storms rolling in can create a beautiful medley of sun, hail and rain together, it's not just the resulting rainbows that you should be thinking about. Even in summer, a sudden flood may occur and build up enough water around the corners of your home to make you think twice about going into your basement.

Once it's taken hold, a mould infestation can bring a characteristic stench and weaken your immune system. As time goes on, there is a chance for mould to die naturally – but that chance is very low in wet Vancouver, where it's more likely that a mould infestation will simply cause more and more damage over time.

The best way to deal with mould is to prevent it by preventing the accumulation of moisture. On a basic level, this could mean being diligent about how much wet air you let into your home, cleaning up spills, and dry-cleaning your clothing where possible.

For individual homes, however, it definitely means having drainage tiles installed and maintained in your basement. A mould infestation can be cleaned expertly, but it can also recur. The best choice is to prevent it!

Avoiding Problems with Drain Tiles

Why do you need a drain tile in your yard?

The use of tile drainage, commonly called drain tile, system started with agriculture. Excess water in the soil harms crops just like lack of water does. While irrigation solves lack of water, tile drainage solves excess water.

A Primer on Drain Tiles: Basic Components

Vancouver can be damp most of the year due to its proximity to the ocean. Some areas get more precipitation than others. All over Vancouver, however, a popular way to keep damp and moisture out of places where it is unwanted is with the use of a drain tile system. Here is a primer about drain tiles that you might find useful.

A drain tile is perforated, letting water in through the holes to move it away from the area, specifically the foundation, around a property. Buried in a bed of rocks, it helps draw away water. The bed of stones are generally 1.9 cm. in diameter and have been pre-cleaned. Other types of rock and stone which are not recommended include pea gravel and compacted stone, wherein these two types of rock don't have enough space between each other to allow the water to drain.

Harmful Effects of Clogging to a Property

Pooling water in your yards or home is a problem that requires immediate attention, as it could be a sign of a clogged drainage. Here are a few basics to help understand it more:

Keep in mind that unless the structure is well-built, water will find its way through every nook and cranny—whether it’s a tiny air pocket or a crack in the basement floor or walls—and find its way into places it shouldn’t be. In addition, water can also literally “go up”: it might leak into your home from the bottom of the foundation, find a seam in the wall, and wick up to the top and make issues a lot more difficult to deal with. 

Once water pools in any part of the property, it brings out a handful of consequences. The inconvenient mess is only one thing; you also have to deal with potential long-term damage to the home’s structure, ballooning insurance rates, and property value depreciation. 

Fortunately, dealing with the effects of a clogged sewer line isn’t as difficult with the help of a professional contractor. They can provide solutions which can prove helpful, like installing a back water valve and patching up drainage systems for more long-term fixes.

Common Causes of Flood in Your Basement

You might think that the water pooling in your basement is just normal because your basement is underground after all. Basements are supposed to be leak-free, so if your see of water collecting on your basement floor, there must be a serious problem. Here are some of the most common causes of flooding in the basement.

Poorly Installed Drainage

The water coming down from the gutter is safely conveyed to the ground through the downspout. Usually, downspouts are installed distant from the basement to prevent the water flowing through it from collecting and overwhelming the weeping tile. If the downspout is too close to the basement window or wall, water may get in.

Dealing with Basement Flooding Problems

Vancouver is among the rainiest cities in Canada and houses are prone to rainwater pooling or worse, flooding. Heavy rains may come in the middle of the night unannounced and before long, your basement gets a build-up of rainwater pools. This is not just ugly to look at but can also lead to other harmful effects.

Water can damage furniture, wallpapers, carpets, and floors. Wooden furniture is particularly vulnerable—they may warp, split, or crack from prolonged exposure to water.

Water collecting in your basement means you have a leak and if rainwater can come in, so can bacteria. With high levels of moisture, they can multiply fast!

It’s not only bacteria that loves moisture as you’ve got mold to worry about, too. If the mold spreads at a rapid rate, the amount of spores inside your house will increase. This will cause problems for people with a compromised immune system, asthma, or allergies. Besides, there is also a toxic breed of mold that can mess up even healthy people.

Flooding in your basement will inevitably weaken the foundation of your house, on top of all these health risks, and that’s never a good thing.

If your basement gets wet or flooded, you should do more than just cleaning and drying after every incident. It’s probably about time to have drain tile installed around your house to prevent further cases.

Dealing with Poor Lawn Drainage

Do you notice puddles that linger for longer than usual on your lawn especially after it rains? You might be dealing with poor lawn drainage, and you need to act now. Why? For one, long-standing puddles can attract mosquitoes and even weaken and kill the grass you’ve worked so hard to cultivate. Grass roots need air as much as water, and with too much water in the soil, they’ll “drown,” and the green will turn to brown.

Setting up Drain Tiles in a Wet Yard

Some houses may have gardens that feel squishy to the touch even during clear days. When this happens, issues with drainage are a distinct possibility. Consider the following ways to work around them:

Evaluation

Start by analysing the lawn to find any unusually wet patches, especially following a recent episode of inclement weather. Your contractor will help mark out the patches where the drain tiles will be set up. You will need to consult the utility authority on the actual plumbing grid for your property so you can pinpoint if the patches are actually above any pipes. Set up the drain tiles in such a way that the patches will be safely channelled away from the property.

Legwork

The contractor will then set up the trench or trenches where the drain tile and piping will be installed. The trick is to establish a proper gradient to aid in the runoff flow away from the property. For the area where the heaviest water runoff is detected, a main well will have to be set up for the water to begin the flow down to another on the far end of the tile system. A bed of gravel must be laid down on the deep point of the trench before the drain tile piping are put in; additional layers of gravel will cover them up.