Transcription
Hi John Muscleman here from Muslim Home Inspection. Hope everyone's doing well out there today.
One of the things we often tell people to think about in springtime is to test drainage systems, you know, making sure that their drains are actually pulling water away from their house. Today, I wanted to talk about how to test underground drainage because underground drainage is one of those things where we put in place to direct water away from our house, but sometimes they disconnect underneath the ground and can actually be directing the water directly next to our foundation, which we're trying not to have happen. So today, one of the things that I want to show you is how we test it. So, real quick, let's get started with, uh, the beginning process here. Here we go.
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Okay, testing underground drainage can be pretty simple, but basically, what we're doing is we're testing to make sure that the piping system that's underneath the ground here is actually pulling the water away from the house, uh, where we want it to go. This goes out to the seepage bed at the opposite end of the property. So, we want to make sure it's getting from point A to point B. Um, and it's important to check these things from time to time because we want to make sure that this water isn't just going directly into the ground, which then could, in turn, make our sump pump run over and over and over again. We call that recirculating or recycling. So, at any rate, the way we do this, we need a small little garden hose. We need a way to get into point A or point B, and we just connect the hose. We take the hose and put it into our sump pit hole here or this drain, and then we're going to turn it on and let it run, and then we're going to see and make sure that our sump pump doesn't kick on, and we're going to make sure that the water is getting from here out to the seepage bed where we want it. All right, so let's turn on the water and let's see if it goes where it's supposed to.
One thing we want to do here is see that it is actually going down and not gurgling back up, which it looks like it is, which is what we want. We also didn't hear the sump pump kick on right away. We want to let this run for a while and monitor the sump pump too, just to make sure, because sometimes underground these can disconnect and cause a problem. So, here I can also hear through this vent that it is actually going through there as well, so that's good. And the sump pit pump has not kicked on yet. We're going to continue to let it run and see what happens. Let's walk out to the seepage bed and see if it's getting there.
All right, here's the seepage bed itself. This is where everything comes to. This is also one of those areas that you always want to keep clean, but I see water running, so that's a good sign. It's always a good thing to actually check this before you get started too, just to make sure that it's not running from another source, but anyway, I had done that, but I didn't video it. So, here it is, but now we know that our drains from our gutters and our downspouts are getting from point A to point B. So, let's head back up to the house.
All right, now we're coming inside to check the sump pit area right below the area of where we are running the water in the outside drains. We want to make sure that inside of here that we're not seeing water flowing. So, thankfully, I'm not seeing anything coming out of these perimeter drain pipes, so that's a good sign. So, how to clean out your sump pump and how to operate that, um, on a regular basis, make sure that it's functioning properly and make sure that everything's nice and clean in there. We have that in another video. Check it out. Sometimes.
Now, let's go back outside and check what's happening out there. Water has been draining into the underground drainage system now here for about 15 minutes. The sump pump hasn't gone on, and I didn't see any water running in the sump pump down in the basement or sump pit, I should say. I found that the water is running from the actual piping system out to the seepage bed, and that's what we're looking for. So, we've tested and made sure that the underground drainage system is working, and that's what we want to do. We should be doing that a couple times a year to make sure that our systems are doing what we want them to do and not and getting the water away from the foundation, not at the foundation.
The drainage system here has been running for about 20 minutes. So, I didn't see any type of water actually coming back out of the sump pump. I went down and checked the drain down in the basement, uh, or I should say the sump pit to make sure that there wasn't any water flowing down there. So, I know that this drain now is going from point A to point B to point C, which is the seepage pit out there. So, we fully tested the system to make sure that it's functioning and made sure that we're not putting the water right back at the foundation or next to the foundation, um, like we're trying to prevent.
Testing on underground drainage systems are an important piece to the puzzle to make sure that we're actually getting water away from our foundation. It's an important piece along the way to make sure that our systems stay safe and healthy and dry. I hope you found this video useful, and as always, like and subscribe. We're always looking for different points that we can talk about along the way on this channel. We like to help people understand and manage and maintain their largest investment. Today, I hope you've learned how to manage and maintain your underground drainage systems and make sure that they're working the way that they're supposed to. In our home inspections, we tell people to test your underground drainage at least once a year to make sure that they're doing what they're supposed to. If you have any questions, don't hesitate to reach out. Have a great day, everyone.
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