Avoiding the great flood.

May 30, 1996

One of the things I am learning about the construction business is that its dangerous to make assumptions. In this case I assumed that the contractor that pours the foundation also waterproofs it. In reality there is a contractor that does the blackjacking, a black tar like substance painted onto the walls, and another contractor that installs the drain tile. We opted to install the drain tile ourselves and save some money. The drain tile is not really a tile at all, but rather a 4" black plastic tube with perforations. The tube is placed on a 2" layer of small gravel, and covered with a filter cloth or encased in a filter cloth sock. The top of the drain tile should be placed about even with the top of your footers which may require some digging. The drain tile will be covered with about a foot of gravel when we backfill the foundation.

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