An exterior foundation drain is excavated to the footing, the wall is cleaned and membraned, perforated pipe is bedded in washed stone with fabric around it, and the whole run falls to a daylight outfall or a sump. The step that decides the outcome is the one before all of it: confirming the water is arriving from outside at all.

What the ground here does to the trench

Surface clay around Layton runs as high as 23%, and the slowest mapped soil moves water down at 0.4 inches an hour. On middling ground like this the drain works for as long as the stone around it stays clean, which makes fabric and imported washed stone the two specifications worth checking in a quote. They are not upgrades here. They are the difference between a drain that lasts and one that silts up in a few seasons.

The reasoning behind that

Excavation goes to footing level around the affected wall, or the full perimeter where the problem is not confined to one side. This is the expensive part and it is why interior perimeter drains exist as an alternative.

With the wall exposed, it is cleaned and given a drainage membrane or board. This is the step most often skipped and it is the one that keeps water off the wall rather than merely moving it once it arrives.

The pipe is bedded in washed stone, not in the spoil that came out, and wrapped or separated from the soil by fabric so silt does not fill the voids. A drain that clogs is almost always a drain that was laid against dirt.

The run has to fall the whole way to somewhere the water may legally go. Then the trench is backfilled in lifts and the surface is graded away from the house.

More on this: Exterior French Drain and Waterproofing in Layton, UT.

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