Inte­ri­or Drain Tile vs. Exte­ri­or Drain Tile — Which Sys­tem is Better?

Feb 9, 2012 • By Matthew Stock with Ben Shachter.

Hav­ing a water prob­lem in your base­ment is not fun; in fact, it is pret­ty much a pain in the butt! Often the solu­tion is fair­ly con­ser­v­a­tive, such as a foun­da­tion crack repair. Oth­er times Murphy’s Law strikes home­own­ers — the prob­lem requires a more lib­er­al approach. Life isn’t always about the cards you get but how you deal with them.

If you have been keep­ing up with our pri­or blogs, you may already have a gen­er­al under­stand­ing of how drain tile sys­tems work. Per­haps you haven’t, and are still unsure if you real­ly need drain tile. If you have come to grips with the fact that you need drain tile to solve your seep­age prob­lem, this par­tic­u­lar blog is ded­i­cat­ed to you.

Drain Tile Sys­tems, or more specif­i­cal­ly Foot­ing Tile Sys­tems, are installed at the low­est point of the struc­ture, along­side the foot­ing. The pip­ing sys­tem can be installed on either the out­side of the foot­ing (Exte­ri­or Drain Tile) or on the inside of the foot­ing (Inte­ri­or Drain Tile Sys­tem). What best meets your needs?

The fol­low­ing com­par­i­son describes the dif­fer­ences between Inte­ri­or and Exte­ri­or Drain Tile Sys­tems, based on func­tion­al­i­ty and instal­la­tion fac­tors. We hope this helps you to make the best deci­sion for you and your home.

Inte­ri­or Drain Tile System

Advantages:

• Com­pre­hen­sive solu­tion: Cap­tures floor and wall seep­age with no need to remove fin­ished walls to ful­ly water­proof basement
• Avoids dis­rup­tion on exte­ri­or: Exte­ri­or water­proof­ing usu­al­ly requires removal of land­scap­ing and paved sur­faces near building
• More eco­nom­i­cal: Exte­ri­or water­proof­ing is more labor inten­sive, result­ing in high­er costs
• Relieves hydro­sta­t­ic pres­sure: A con­tin­u­ous pip­ing sys­tem inside of the foot­ing drains water from beneath the floor in addi­tion to around the perime­ter of the foundation
• Not weath­er per­mit­ting: The instal­la­tion can be per­formed year round
• Pro­tect­ed from out­side: Inte­ri­or sys­tems are not sub­ject to the ele­ments, soil con­di­tions or roots grow­ing into the drainage system

Disadvantages:

• Requires some prepa­ra­tions: Stored items, built in shelv­ing or cab­i­nets may need to be moved away from the exte­ri­or walls. Inte­ri­or instal­la­tion also requires removal of car­pet­ing or flooring
• Access dur­ing install: Base­ment can­not be used dur­ing time of installation
• Brick or stone foun­da­tions: With­out instal­la­tion of exte­ri­or sealant, water may con­tin­ue to per­me­ate some mason­ry foundations

Exte­ri­or Drain Tile System

Advantages:

• Lit­tle dis­rup­tion to base­ment inte­ri­or: Most of the work is per­formed on the exterior
• Lit­tle or no cus­tomer prepa­ra­tion: The excep­tion being land­scap­ing next to home
• Helps drain soil: An exte­ri­or sys­tem will drain sat­u­rat­ed earth next to house and relieve lat­er­al water pres­sure against foundation
• Exte­ri­or sealant: Full exca­va­tion allows for appli­ca­tion of exte­ri­or mem­brane water­proof­ing (espe­cial­ly help­ful for mason­ry foundations)

Disadvantages:

• Less Eco­nom­i­cal: Exte­ri­or work is more labor inten­sive than inte­ri­or instal­la­tion, espe­cial­ly for full depth basements
• Dis­rup­tive on exte­ri­or: Any land­scap­ing or pave­ment close to house gen­er­al­ly needs to be removed and replaced
• Access can be lim­it­ed: Exte­ri­or water­proof­ing can­not be installed where there are home addi­tions, attached garages and close buildings
• Hydro­sta­t­ic pres­sure relief: Exte­ri­or sys­tem does not drain water from beneath base­ment floor
• Length of Project: Exte­ri­or con­struc­tion projects can last 2x-3x more than inte­ri­or installation

Both Inte­ri­or and Exte­ri­or Drain Tile Sys­tems have proven to pro­vide last­ing results for thou­sands of home­own­ers, just like you. We install more Inte­ri­or sys­tems for one main rea­son – the dif­fer­ence in costs. Sim­ply put, it requires less labor to break through a cou­ple inch­es of con­crete inside your home than it is to exca­vate through sev­er­al feet of soil on the out­side. Now, if you have a high­ly fin­ished base­ment which requires a lot of job prepa­ra­tions, the eco­nom­ics may change. 

Need more infor­ma­tion? Con­tact us for a free eval­u­a­tion. Our expe­ri­ence over the last 55 years gives us plen­ty of per­spec­tive. And we would love to add you to our list over 300,000 served!

Tags: drain tile, interior drain tile, drain tile in basement, exterior drain tile

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