What is an Interior Weeping Tile System?
An interior weeping tile system — also called a French drain or interior perimeter drain — is an underground drainage network installed beneath your basement floor. It intercepts ground water before it can surface on your floor, channeling it to a sump pit and pump that carries it safely away from your home.
This is our most recommended solution for wet basements because it solves two problems simultaneously: water coming through the walls and water coming up from under the floor. The exterior repair only addresses wall seepage but cannot improve under-floor drainage if your exterior weeping tile is plugged or damaged.
Why Interior is Often Better Than Exterior
- Significantly less expensive than full exterior excavation
- Solves floor flooding AND wall seepage in one system
- Works even when exterior weeping tiles are plugged, collapsed, or nonexistent
- No landscape disturbance — all work done from inside
- Platon/Delta membrane diverts wall seepage into the drain
- Comes with a lifetime system warranty
Our Installation Process — Step by Step
Break Out Perimeter Floor Strip
We break out a 16" wide strip of concrete floor around the perimeter of the basement to expose the footing and soil beneath the slab. All debris is removed from site.
Install Sump Pit & Pump
If no existing pit is present, we install a new sump pit beside an outside wall. The sump pump discharges at least 10 feet from the house exterior.
Dig Trench & Install 4" Drain Tile
We dig a trench beside the footing and install 4" perforated weeping tile (o-pipe), covered with clean crushed stone to the top of the footing. For block walls, holes are drilled in the bottom course to allow water to drain out.
Install Waterproof Membrane
Platon or Delta membrane is installed along the outside walls with dimples facing the wall, sealed at the top with Platon Speedstrip. The lower edge drapes over the footing and drain tile to direct wall water into the system.
Re-pour Concrete Floor
New concrete is poured to replace what was removed. The floor is finished cleanly — you'd barely know we were there.
Block Wall Foundations — Special Consideration
Construction block foundations have mortar joints around every block — hundreds of potential leak points. Blocks are also hollow and can fill with water. For block wall foundations, the interior French drain is almost always our first recommendation because it handles both wall and floor water with one system, at a fraction of the cost of exterior excavation.
High Water Table Situations
In areas with an unusually high water table, we may recommend an additional drain tile across the middle of the basement floor as well as the perimeter, and possibly a secondary sump pump for redundancy. We'll assess your specific situation and recommend accordingly.