The same problem approached from two sides — a drain outside the footing, or one inside the slab feeding a sump.
What is the difference between an interior and an exterior French drain?
The same problem approached from two sides — a drain outside the footing, or one inside the slab feeding a sump.
Which one does a Ogden basement need?
Access decides it more often than performance does. Outside is the more complete fix and the more disruptive one; inside is what remains when the outside cannot be dug.
Which is cheaper in Ogden, inside or outside?
What has to come out and go back decides this, more than the drain does. Outside means digging, planting, and anything built against the house. Inside means breaking and repouring floor, plus a pump and a discharge line.
When neither drain is the right fix
Neither, if water is reaching one wall from a downspout or a slope that could be fixed at the surface. Both routes are earthworks. Earthworks are a costly answer to water that is simply aimed at the house.
Get an estimate for a French drain in Ogden
This work cannot be priced from a description. Three things decide it. What the ground does with water. How much fall the site has. Where the water may go at the end. All three are facts about an address, and none of them show up in a photograph. Send the address and what you are seeing. Someone who does this work in Ogden takes it from there. If it turns out to be a different job than this one, that is worth hearing before the digging.
Ogden Utah French Drain drainage services.
Read what a Ogden drainage job costs before calling anyone, and check the Ogden Utah French Drain service area to see whether your street is covered.
Back to Ogden Utah French Drain.
The ground under Ogden
A high water table is the case where the inside answer wins
The shallowest mapped water table sits 29.9 inches down
Where ground water rises above the footing, an exterior drain is working against water that is already under the slab. That is the situation an interior system and a sump are actually designed for, and it is the honest reason to prefer the more disruptive option.
USDA NRCS Soil Survey Geographic Database (SSURGO), via Soil Data Access
Questions people actually ask
Which is more effective, an interior or an exterior drain?
An exterior drain, because it stops water before it reaches the wall. An interior drain relieves water that has already arrived. Where the outside can still be dug, outside is the more complete fix and roughly 2 days more disruptive.
How much of the floor has to come up for an interior drain?
A strip about 12 to 18 inches wide around the perimeter being treated, broken and repoured. On a finished basement everything on that strip comes out first, and putting it back is usually the larger half of the price.
Can an exterior drain be dug under a patio or a drive?
Yes, but it comes off and goes back. Reckon on that adding 1 to 3 days plus the cost of the surface itself. This is the single most common reason an interior route is chosen on a house where the outside would otherwise win.
Does an interior drain need a sump pump?
Almost always, because it sits below the slab and has nowhere to run by gravity. That adds a basin, a power supply and a discharge line, and 1 more thing that can fail in a power cut than an exterior drain has.
Is either one a permanent fix?
Both last 30 to 40 years when built with clean stone and a filter wrap. Both silt shut inside 10 without one. The wrap is invisible once backfilled, which is why it is worth seeing it specified in writing.
Trusted across Ogden, Utah and Weber County
What this site is good for
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Residential and commercial
A house with a wet basement and a site with standing water on a hardstanding are different jobs at different scales. Both are covered, and the pages say which is which.
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Free, and nothing attached
Working out which job you actually have costs nothing and commits you to nothing. There is no fee to you at any point, because this site is paid by the contractor and not by you.
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Your details are not for sale
An address sent here goes to a drainage contractor working in the area. It is never sold, and never passed to a second firm.
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Permits named, not glossed
The pages name the authority that issues the permit for this work and the inspection that goes with it, so you can ask to see one before the first cut.
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Every figure sourced and dated
Soil, rainfall and housing figures each name where they came from and when they were retrieved. Where a published estimate carries a margin of error, the margin is shown too.
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One town, covered properly
This site is about one place and the towns within a short drive of it. It is not a national directory with a city name dropped into a template.
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One run at four stages. The stone is the drain; the pipe is only how the water it collects gets out. -
Water standing at grade. Ground that sheds rather than takes is what puts it there. -
Pipe seated on the stone bed. Trench walls cut clean, so no soil falls back into the stone.
Ground that is saturated has nowhere to put the next storm, and water sitting against a wall keeps working on it.
What happens after you send an address
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The address first, and only then who you are
The first screen asks for the property address and checks that a contractor covers it. Only if one does does it ask for a name, a phone number and an email — there is no point taking your details to tell you nobody serves your street.
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Your details are not for sale
It goes to a drainage contractor working in Ogden. The details are never sold, and never passed to a second firm.
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No cost, and nothing attached
There is no fee for sending an address and no obligation that follows from it. Deciding the work is the wrong work is a perfectly good outcome.
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Who does the work
An independent drainage contractor, not the publisher of this site. Who runs this site, and where every figure on it comes from, is set out on the about page.