How to tie exterior foundation drain to sump pump
I have already formed my basement walls for an addition to the rear of my home. I stepped down the footings to get a bit more headroom in the new basement area. Due to lot-line setbacks i poured the footers to the full extent of my dig-out and now i am running my exterior french drain around the base of the foundation wall. My only option seems to be to run the drain to day light but that requires digging a rather deep and very long trench. Is there a way to tie the french drain into a to-be-installed sump pit and pump it out. I’ve seen details for running it around the outside and base of the footer and connecting via a pipe through the footer. But that is not possible due to my dig-out limitations. Any thoughts?
The only thing i can think of seems crazy and that is to drill a 4″ hole through either my footer or foundation wall and into the sump? Crazy right? If this was structurally sound, would it just leak a ton of water?
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Replies
Mike,
It's always a good idea to have a 4-inch diameter pipe through your footing, to connect the drainage pipe on the exterior side of your footing with the drainage pipe on the interior side of your footing. If you forgot to include that through-the-footing pipe, it's hard to fix now. (I wouldn't try to drill through the footing.)
If I were you, I would do a thorough job of draining the exterior side of the footing, and skip the interior drain pipe. (Because you forgot to install the through-the-footing pipe.)
If you plan to "drain to daylight," you don't need a sump. You just drain to daylight.
If you install an interior sump, the sump pump usually discharges (a) to a pipe near the surface of the soil (ideally, far from the foundation), or (b) to a municipal sewer or storm-drainage pipe.
I'll post some illustrations to show your options. Click an illustration to enlarge it.
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