dankoos
Member
I have a vacation home that has had water around the footer. We dug down to the footer and are preparing to lay some pipe for a french drain. We also waterproofed the block and where the block meets the footer. With the footer being down about 3 feet, there is no natural slope to use to get the water out of there so we are going to use an outdoor sump pit and pump. The deepest pit I can find is 32" (and this is technically labeled as a sewage pit of some kind, but could serve the same purpose) with others being around 28" and these are more for this purpose. My question is, since the bottom of the pit has to be lower than the french drain, should I just have the surface slope toward the top of the sump so that the top is not "under ground" and so the bottom of the pit is lower than the french drain? The pit will be taking the water from the foundation as well as the downspout drains which were draining into the ground somewhere and backing up after heavy rains. So no issue with the downspout drains as they will be higher up. The water collected from the pit will be pumped to the river out back. I also have to figure out how to prevent this setup from freezing in the winter. I hate to disconnect it because here in Ohio we get some good rains in between freeze cycles. Any ideas appreciated.
