Footing Drain
A footing drain is a pipe used to remove water in the ground adjacent to the foundation and/or basement walls. These are also called foundation drains and “weeping or seepage tile”. This is done to keep the basement dry as well as for structural reasons. These are generally connected to the sanitary sewer in older construction. If a resident has a basement (with some limited exceptions, i.e., “Michigan basements”) it has a footing drain. The city must evaluate the volume of water which these footing drains are carrying into the sanitary sewer and their effect on the sanitary sewer overflows during heavy rain events.
Sump Pump
A sump pump is a pump that is generally located in the basement of a residence and carries the water from the footing drain to the outlet where a gravity outlet for the footing drain is not available. The sump pump outlet may be to a storm or sanitary sewer depending on the age of the pump connection construction. A sump pump connected to the sanitary sewer may be disconnected at a lesser cost due to the limited plumbing involved. It may be necessary in the future to disconnect existing footing drains from the sanitary and connect them to sump pumps in order to direct the groundwater to a storm outlet as the storm sewer is generally shallower than the sanitary sewer.
Rear Yard Catch Basin
A catch basin is a storm sewer structure used to collect surface drainage and direct it to the storm sewer or storm outlet. A rear yard catch basin is a catch basin that is generally associated with a storm drainage easement across the back of the residential rear yards. In some cases, there is not a storm sewer connected to these basins. In this case, it is a seepage basin or “French drain” which allows the surface water to infiltrate into the ground. Sump pumps may be connected to these basins.
