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Does anyone know anything about Form-A-Drain? Ours seems to have failed. Is this common? What causes it to fail? What can be done about it? Any idea what kind of person we can hire to give us solutions without trying to sell us a particular product or service?
For those who do not know. From-A-Drain is a concrete form used for forming footings and then left in place as a drainage system. It has two channels about the size of a 2x4 and roughly 20 slots per foot that allow water to come in. The slots are covered with filter fabric. The forms go all the way around the footing and have small tubes that go through the footings to connect the outside drains to the inside. The inside form-a-drain is then connected to the sump punmp and serves are your drainage system rather than normal weep tile or PVC drains. I think that it is a Certainteed product
Ours worked for a couple of years, but now we have as much as 1/2" of water in one part of our basement after a series of heavy rains. We cannot figure out why the system is suddenly failing.
I'm just guessing here, based on other experiences with ground water. The filter fabric is probably loaded with fine sediment and the tubes clogged with it. I suppose there could be mold as well, but the clogging is likely the primary issue.
Again - just as a guess - one method of attack might be to drill holes every ten feet and use them to flush the system with high pressure water periodically. I'd be in their mucking around trying to figure out exactly what and where the problems are and how they started.
I've never used the system- but have seen it, and did do some homework.
Bottom line- I'd never use it.
Here's my immediate take when I completed my homework
1. It's actually more labor intensive than regular form boards.
2. My concrete guy doesn't want to go into the drain tile/ waterproofing business.
3. The initial out-lay cost is prohibitive (as compared to other more established procedures.
4. Right angle corners are a dam just waiting to happen (water needs easy/gentle turns to flow properly. The joints are slip-joint (no glue)- the problem with this is square and/or rectangular tubing doesn't have the structural integerty that a "circle" does. So, compaction of soil will envebibilty collapse or partically collapse the formdrain and the joints become gateways for more debris.
5. How many crossover links do you need to keep the system adequately dry (there are no guide lines).
6. I had doubt about having a draintile under the slab- The whole idea of the draintile is to prevent water from intruding the "living side" of the home.
At this point I somewhat agree with harry- high pressure flushing might help- but it doesn't solve the problem.
Since you have water infiltration- I would assume there's a sump pump that's not working (if there is one)- beyond that I would assume one of my reasons above.
We have two sump pumps. Both are working. There is water coming out of the form a drain channels, but there is still water coming into the basement through the joint between the floor and the wall. The sump pumps both pump out a considerable amount o water after a period of heavy rains. Still the water comes in.
I can reach into the orm a drain trhough the supmp pump tubing There is a little sand in the bottom, but only about an inch or less.
I would think you have an issue with the pipe flowing away from the house. If the pipe has a hump or inadequate grade, then the water will not get away. You can't blame the style of drain for that. Have your outflow pipe inspected with a camera. It will tell you if the problem is in the drain, or the out flow pipe.
There are two sump pumps. One has a pipe 100 feet long out to a ditch. This pipe froze once, but other than that, we can see the water running out the end and we see the pump draining the sump well down to the float level regularly. Perhaps more telling is that the ditch that it discarges to pretty muc always has water in it. It is supposed to drain under the road to the river, but the culvert was crushed years ago so the water just sits in the ditch. The other just sump pump discharges about 10 feet from the house. There is a bit of a hill on that side. The base of the hill is a sort of swale tha drains the adjoining property down to the ditch. We will porbably eventually have to put a pipe in all the way down to the ditch on that side becasue the adjoining property is pretty much a swamp where the pipe discharges all year round.
Our system is working. It pumps out a lot of water. However it is not getting enough water out, since some still come in. The odd thing is that the areas where water is coming in are covered with concrete so the water is not from the roof or just rain water that falls on the surface. It is coming from somewhere else.
Our property is a bit of a slope and the house was on a basement that was about 3 feet out of the ground and then fill was put in (regraded, not added) to slope away form the house in all directions. However the back of the house has the least slope since it is on the higher side of the hill. It is not a super steep hill. In the back it is barely noticable. However parts of several adjoining properties drain accross out lot to the adjoining lot and then down towards the road out front.
We are going to try some grading changes in the back yard. Back behind the carriage house and the pool, the yard is frequently swampy, muich of it has standing water fro about 60 days of the year. I suspect that water may be running under the disturbed ground and fill from grading our lot and then collecting around the basement. We will fill that area with clayey soil and grade so the water is diverted to either side. We will then dig a swale all the way down the side of the property lines to the ditch. That should divert the water coming from behind us to either side and give it some place to go. We may also dig out a small pond and allow the water to collect there. If that does not solve the problem, then we will jackhammer up the basement slab and instal a secondary drain system that sits on top of the footing. The problem with that is we will have to remove the floors and walls in the basement to do it. It will cost $20,000 or more to restore the basement. Hopefully the fill and grading in the back yard will reduce the amount of water we are dealing with so the existing system can handle the water. Behind the back yard is several hundred feet of woods/thicket. It is really swampy back there. We cannot fill there without removing trees, so we may try to put in some drains. We may just leave it swampy and build some raised trails. The problem is that everything you change has consequences elsewhere. The ground in our areas is very dense clay and water does not tend to soak in. It just sits there. In fact, the ditch out fron will sit full of water even when things get super dry. Eventually it evaporates, but it does not soak in to the ground.
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