Interior Drain Tile for Sussex homes
Sussex sits on heavy clay in northern Waukesha County, right next to Lisbon, and every spring that clay reminds homeowners it's there. As the snow melts, the clay around the foundation soaks up water and swells. It presses on the walls from the side and builds pressure under the slab from below. Water gets squeezed toward the weakest point in the basement, and that's nearly always the seam along the bottom of the walls.
The village has older homes on concrete block and a lot of newer subdivisions on poured walls, and the clay pushes on both. In a block basement, water fills the hollow cores and weeps out at the base. In a poured basement, it comes through the cold joint or a vertical crack. Interior drain tile handles both from the inside. We cut the slab along the perimeter, lay perforated pipe in washed gravel beside the footing, and slope it to a sump crock with a pump and a battery backup that takes over when the power fails.
Clay that pushes water in can also push walls, so Nick or Luis measure your walls before they talk about drainage. A block wall that has started bowing gets braced first, and then the drain tile goes in beneath a stable wall. On poured walls, we seal any leaking cracks as part of the same job. Sussex is a short trip from our Waukesha shop, and when the Village of Sussex requires a permit, we pull it.
