Interior Basement Drainage in Alaska

Dry a wet basement by placing a perimeter drainage system inside your home

Basement drains come in many shapes and sizes, some of which prove much more effective for maintaining a dry, usable space in your home.

Basement drains also have many names, including drain tile, weeping tile, French drain, drain pipe, interior footing drain, and others.

The best way to keep your basement dry all the time is to install a drainage system along the inside perimeter of your basement floor.

An interior system can bypass the expense and damage to your yard that is caused by an exterior drainage system. Interior systems cost half as much, install in 1-2 days, and are installed with no need to excavate the outside perimeter of your home.

How interior basement drains work

To install a basement drain inside your home, a waterproofer will typically run a drainage system along all leaking walls. Ideally, this system will be installed along the entire perimeter of the basement or crawl space.

Once the water is collected, it's directed to a sump pump which discharges the water out and away from the house.

The FlowGuard^®: Thin Floor Basement Drain System

Although adding a drainage system is necessary for many basements, homeowners are understandably concerned about the appearance of the installed system. For basements where a standard drain system is too large, we have the FlowGuard Thin Floor Drain System.

The FlowGuard is a thin, modified form of our typical drain system that can be installed in front of the foundation footing. This drainage channel is designed to collect water from the basement walls via a wall flange. The flange directs collected water to a drain system that rests in a bed of clean drainage gravel.

This system fits smoothly underneath thin floors, providing a clean, finished appearance. The Thin Floor Drain System is equally as effective as any of our other drainage systems.

If you're interested in more information, Foundation and Crawl Space Repair of Alaska is ready to help you. We offer free basement waterproofing quotes to homeowners throughout Alaska.

Our service area includes Anchorage, Wasilla, Juneau, as well as surrounding areas such as Eagle River, Palmer, Jber, Chugiak, Valdez, Big Lake, Cordova, and nearby.

What works with interior basement drain systems

All basement drains are not alike, and some work much better than others. Foundation and Crawl Space Repair of Alaska would like to share with you some of the features of the best basement drains -- and why our system is the one for you.

What follows is a list of ways that our drainage systems beat the competition:

Drainage that will not clog

Some drainage systems are installed with a 1" gap at the edge of the floor. These gaps can collect dirt and debris from the floor, clogging your drainage system.

Other drains sit completely underneath the basement floor in front of the footing, laying in the mud underneath your home. These drains can easily clog with mud, causing the system to fail.

Features of our system:

• Sits on top of the footing, out of the mud
• A bed of stone keeps system clean
• 3/8" wall flange to accept wall seepage and keep out floor debris

Frozen discharge line protection

Drains and discharge lines resting outside of the home are liable to freeze during the cold winter months.

If your discharge line is frozen with ice, the water will have no exit, thus backing up into your basement or crawl space and burning out your pump. You will be flooded.

To ensure that a basement does not flood from this freezing discharge line, the water needs another way out of your home.

Features of our system:

• A special grated opening outside your home allows water to escape
• No valves to turn - IceGuard® works automatically
• No water escapes during normal pumping

Built-in wall drainage (no open gaps on the floor)

Basement walls can leak in many ways, including through cracks, pipe penetrations, through windows, or simply by having water seep through the concrete.

The hollow cavities in block walls can fill with water, creating a never-ending stream of water vapor and humidity in the home.

Our system can be integrated with these walls by drilling holes in each block that drain into your system.

Features of our system:

• A 3/8" wall flange allows water to drain from the walls
• Compatible with tucked-in wall vapor barriers
• Neat and clean finished appearance

An easily accessible port

Foundation and Crawl Space Repair of Alaska's WaterGuard® Ports are useful access ports to the system. These ports provide a channel that's usable for inspection, flood-testing, and for flushing out the system.

These ports are also useful when creating a drainage path for your dehumidifier system -- and include convenient knockout holes to allow for the insertion of the drainage tube.

Features of our system:

• Easy-access ports to the drainage system
• Drains a dehumidifier that isn't located near the sump pump
• Provides a convenient point for inspection

Baseboard waterproofing system

Some homes are built with a monolithic foundation as part of their design. With monolithic foundations, the floor and footing are poured together as one piece and the edges of the floor are extremely thick.

Jackhammering a trench at the edges of a monolithic foundation is work-intensive and creates a lot of dust! Therefore, a subfloor perimeter drainage system is not advisable. The recommended solution is to install a baseboard drainage system on top of the floor.

Features of our system:

• Safe for monolithic foundations
• Installs in only 1-2 days
• Permanently bonded to the floor
• Options available for monolithic foundations with leaking floor cracks

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