The best and most reliable approach is the WaterGuard Basement Waterproofing System. While other approaches can work some of the time, this is the one that works all the time. WaterGuard is a piping system engineered specifically for wet basements- designed to avoid the problems of other approaches.
When the WaterGuard Basement Waterproofing System installation begins, the perimeter of the floor is removed. This process is used on the floor only- the footing and foundation are not damaged by this process. If you have block foundation walls, weep holes are drilled into each core of each block so that the water contained within the hollow cores of the wall is continually drained away.
 Clean gravel is laid down on the bottom of the trench that has been removed around the perimeter. WaterGuard is laid on top, and then gravel is laid on top. Once this is completed, concrete is laid back down on top of the system, it’s smoothed over and the area is cleaned.
Water from the block, floor/wall joint, and from under the floor is all drained away through the system. If you have floor cracks, lateral drainage piping is laid under the floor and connected to the WaterGuard system. The wall drain is a molding with spacers that create a neat-looking drain against the wall. Because it sticks up above the floor about an inch, dirt and small objects from the floor can't get in and clog it.
The next benefit is very important. Due to the WaterGuard drain’s not sitting in the soil and the fact that it is sitting on top of gravel, it is extremely unlikely that heavy soil particles will wash through the gravel and upwards into the system and make it clog. In five or ten or twenty years from now, this system will still be clean and free draining.
We recommend installing a sump pump -- preferably the TripleSafe or SuperSump -- and a feed pipe from the WaterGuard to drain all the water out of the system to the sump (or other drain).
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