Where it shows, when it runs, and whether the soil slopes toward the wall. Those three answers point to the cheap fixes before any product.
Water firstthen movementWalk the lot in the rain. Where downspouts dump and which way the soil slopes tell you more than any product page.
This diagnostic traces foundation water from three answers: where it shows, when it runs, and which way the grade slopes. Water that tracks rain points to gutters, downspouts and grade, the cheap fixes.
Water that runs in dry weather is not stormwater: think plumbing, irrigation or a spring. It does not design a drain or recommend a waterproofing product.
Where, when, grade
Three observations. No product. Nothing is emailed.
—Verdict
—What to look at
—What this page will not do
What this assumed—
Diagnostic questions. Cause is more often water than a missing pier. Not a design. HyreFoundation does not waterproof basements.
The mechanism
You are not fighting water. You are fighting the pressure behind it
Treating the problem as pressure rather than water reorganizes the whole subject, and it is the distinction the code is built around rather than the one the marketing is built around.
Source fact. IRC R405 requires drains around below-grade foundations: "Drains shall be provided around concrete or masonry foundations that retain earth and enclose habitable or usable spaces located below grade." Acceptable materials are "Drainage tiles, gravel or crushed stone drains, perforated pipe or other approved systems."
Source fact — and read the exemption carefully, because it is the tell. "A drainage system is not required where the foundation is installed on well-drained ground or sand-gravel mixture soils according to the Unified Soil Classification System, Group I soils."
The one circumstance in which the model code lets you skip the drain is when the ground already drains by itself. The requirement is not about keeping water out of the wall. It is about not letting water stand against it.
Source fact — the specified build.
The gravel or crushed stone is to extend not less than 1 foot beyond the outside edge of the footing and 6 inches above the top of the footing, placed on not less than 2 inches of washed gravel and covered with not less than 6 inches of the same material.
Note what that describes: a graded stone envelope with a defined depth of washed gravel below and above, extending past the footing. Not a pipe dropped in clay backfill.
Our analysis. Drainage is the requirement that relieves pressure. Membranes resist water; drains remove the head that pushes it. This is why a waterproofing sale with no drainage line item is the wrong shape of job, and why the cheapest genuinely effective work on most houses is above ground, in gutters and grade.
Why this matters commercially. "Basement waterproofing" as sold is often a coating, sometimes a coating plus an interior channel and a sump. Each of those can be legitimate work.
But the question that separates a solution from a symptom management contract is: what happens to the water, and where does it go?
If the answer is "into a channel, into a sump, out through a pipe, discharged here" — that is a drainage design and you can evaluate it.
If the answer is "the coating stops it", the head is still there, and so is the load on the wall that the coating does nothing about.
The cheapest effective work is above ground. Gutters that are clear and actually discharge somewhere; downspouts extended well past the backfill rather than dumping at the corner; grade falling away from the wall; irrigation not soaking one elevation.
That is where most of the water at most foundations comes from, it costs a fraction of anything below grade, and almost nobody sells it because there is no margin in a downspout extension.
The distinction
Dampproofing and waterproofing are two different requirements
Dampproofing and waterproofing get used interchangeably in sales conversations. In IRC R406 they are different obligations triggered by different site conditions, and the difference decides what you should be paying for.
Dampproofing
Waterproofing
What it resists
Moisture and incidental water, in the absence of hydrostatic pressure. Vapor and damp rather than standing water.
Water under hydrostatic pressure — standing or flowing groundwater bearing on the wall.
When the code calls for it
The baseline for below-grade walls enclosing usable space.
Where a high water table or other severe soil or water conditions are known to exist. A site condition triggers it, not a preference.
What decides which you need
Ground water conditions at your site.
The same. Which is why "which one does my house need?" is a question about your ground, answerable by someone who has looked at your ground.
Relieve pressure either. A waterproof membrane under head is a membrane holding back a load — which is precisely why the code pairs it with a drainage requirement rather than offering it as an alternative.
What its absence from a quote means
If a quote says "waterproofing" and describes a dampproofing product, the words and the work do not match. Ask which requirement the proposal thinks applies, and why.
If a proposal claims your site needs waterproofing, ask what evidence established the water table or the soil condition. That is a real, checkable claim about your ground, not a product tier.
These are two different code requirements, not two words for the same product. Which one applies is decided by the ground water condition at your site, not by the coating on the truck.
A contractor who uses the words interchangeably is telling you something about the estimate.
The IRC is a model code. It has force only in the edition your jurisdiction adopted, with the local amendments that jurisdiction made.
Foundation chapters get amended more than most, because frost depth and soil are local facts. Confirm with your building department before relying on any figure here.
Diagnosis
Where the water is actually coming from, in rough order of likelihood
The order matters, because it is almost the reverse of the order in which these get sold.
Illustrative weighting, not data. We hold no dataset of basement water sources and this chart is a diagram of an argument, not a measurement.HyreFoundation analysis, structured on IRC R405 and R406
1. Surface water — roof and grade. A roof collects a remarkable volume and concentrates it at a handful of points.
If a downspout discharges at the corner of the house, it is delivering that whole catchment straight into the backfill, which is the loosest, most permeable soil on the site.
This is the most common source and the cheapest to fix. Where the soil is expansive, a tree drying it out changes the picture again; the tree distance check covers that side of it.
2. Subsurface — water table and perched water. Genuine groundwater bearing on the wall, or water perched on a clay layer above the true table. This is what triggers the waterproofing requirement rather than the dampproofing one, and it is a site fact that someone should be able to demonstrate rather than assert.
3. Through the wall — cracks, cold joints, penetrations, form tie holes. Water needs a path and a driving force. This category is the path; the first two are the force.
Sealing a path while leaving the force intact usually just moves the leak to the next-weakest point, which is why sequential leak-chasing is a recognizable pattern in this trade.
4. Condensation — not intrusion at all. Warm humid air meeting a cold surface.
Basement walls and slabs are cold in summer, and in a humid climate a "leak" that appears in July and vanishes in October is often the air, not the ground.
Free test: tape a square of plastic sheet tightly to the wall or slab and come back in a couple of days.
Water on the room side of the plastic is condensation; water trapped underneath is coming through the wall. That single test separates two problems with completely different solutions.
5. Plumbing. A supply or waste leak, a failing water heater, an air conditioning condensate line.
Worth ruling out early because it is cheap to check and because it is the one source that gets steadily worse regardless of weather.
On a slab-on-grade house with localized movement, a static plumbing test also answers a structural question at the same time.
Recommendation. Work down this list before pricing anything below grade. If water appears only after heavy rain, look at category 1 first.
If it appears with a rising water table in spring and takes weeks to clear, that is category 2.
If it appears in humid weather on cold surfaces with no rain correlation, run the plastic sheet test before you buy a membrane.
The word that means four things
What "French drain" actually has to have to be one
"French drain" is a term applied to at least four different pieces of work, at wildly different prices, with different purposes. Insist on which one is being quoted.
The four things people mean
An exterior footing drain. Perforated pipe in washed stone at the footing, outside the wall, with filter fabric and a discharge, as IRC R405 describes. Digging one in on an existing house is the most expensive option on this page, and sometimes the correct one.
An interior perimeter drain. A channel cut into the slab edge inside, collecting water that has already reached the wall and routing it to a sump.
It does not keep water out of the ground or off the wall; it manages water that arrives. That is a legitimate strategy and it should be described as what it is.
A yard drain or swale. Intercepting surface water somewhere in the garden before it reaches the building. Often the highest-value work on the whole list and rarely the thing being quoted when someone says French drain.
A trench with gravel and no outfall. Not a drain. A place for water to collect. It exists more often than you would expect, because the gravel makes it look finished.
The three questions that identify which one you are buying
Where does the water go? Daylight outfall, storm connection where permitted, dry well, or sump and pump. Every drain needs a destination, and the destination is where drains fail. "Into the gravel" is not a destination.
What is the fall, and over what distance? Gravity drains need slope. If the discharge point is not lower than the collection point, the design needs a pump, and a pump needs power and needs to be maintained.
How is the stone kept clean? Filter fabric, washed stone, and separation from the surrounding fines. A stone-filled trench that silts up is a drain with a service life measured in a few seasons.
Where the boundary of this site is
If the water problem is in the yard rather than at the foundation wall — a soggy lawn, a low spot that ponds, a neighbor’s runoff crossing the property — that is landscape drainage, and it is a different trade with different pricing.
It is often also the actual cure for the foundation symptom, which is an awkward fact for anyone selling basement work.
HyreFoundation does not waterproof basements, does not install drains, does not perform the work and takes no referral fee from anyone who does. That is why this page can end at "extend your downspouts and look again next spring", which is genuinely the right answer for a lot of houses.
What to do
The order to work through it
The first four steps cost nothing but a weekend. They also resolve a meaningful share of basement water problems outright, which is why they are almost never step one in a sales process.
1
Record when it happens, not just that it happens
During rain, hours after rain, in spring only, in humid weather with no rain, or continuously. Write dates against events. The timing is the diagnosis — rain-correlated points at surface water, seasonal points at the water table, humidity-correlated points at condensation.
2
Run the plastic sheet test before you believe it is a leak
Tape a square of polythene tightly to the damp wall or slab, sealed on all four edges. After a couple of days: moisture on the room side means condensation; moisture trapped behind means it is coming through. Two completely different problems, one free test.
3
Walk the roof drainage in actual rain
Not on a dry day. Watch where the water goes: overflowing gutters, a blocked outlet, a downspout discharging at the wall, a splashback zone. Ten minutes in a raincoat beats any amount of inference.
4
Check the grade with a level, not by eye
Ground should fall away from the wall. Settled backfill often reverses that slope quietly over a decade, and a reversed grade delivers roof water directly to the foundation. Eyes are unreliable on a slope this shallow; a long level or a string line is not.
5
Fix everything above ground, then wait a full wet season
Extensions, gutters, grade, irrigation. Then watch. Buying below-grade work before you know whether the cheap work solved it is how people end up paying for both.
6
If it persists, get a drainage design — with a destination
From someone who will state where the water goes, what the fall is, and how the stone stays clean. If the wall is also cracking horizontally or bowing inward, this is a structural conversation too and it needs a licensed engineer, promptly.
7
Keep the record either way
Dated photographs of where and when water appeared, before and after each intervention. It is what tells you whether the last thing worked, and it is what a warranty conversation two years from now will actually turn on.
The questions
What to ask a basement waterproofing company
Short questions with checkable answers. The last two are the sentences that should slow you down.
"Where does the water go, exactly?"
Outfall, sump and discharge point, storm connection, dry well. On the drawing, with a location. This one question sorts drainage design from surface treatment faster than any other.
"Is this dampproofing or waterproofing, in the code sense?"
Two different requirements triggered by different site conditions. An answer that treats them as the same thing tells you how the proposal was arrived at.
"What evidence do you have about my water table?"
If the proposal rests on hydrostatic pressure, there should be some basis for believing it — observed water levels, a test pit, neighboring experience, seasonal behavior. It is a claim about the ground and it should be supported.
"What are you doing about my gutters and grade?"
If the answer is nothing, ask why the cheapest and most likely source is out of scope. There may be a good reason. There may also be no margin in it.
"Does this address the pressure on the wall, or only the water on the floor?"
Relevant if there is any horizontal cracking or inward bowing. Managing water that has arrived is not the same as reducing the load, and only one of those is a structural answer.
"Lifetime warranty" with no maintenance or transfer detail
Read to the end: what voids it, who honors it if the company is sold, and whether it transfers, at what fee. A warranty on a sump pump is not a warranty on a dry basement.
"Sign today and we will hold the price"
The FTC’s standing advice on home improvement work is to get it in writing and get more than one bid. A price with a shelf life measured in one visit is a fact about the sales process, not about the work.
Vocabulary
The words, defined
Hydrostatic pressure
The pressure exerted by standing water in the soil against a wall or slab. It rises with the height of the water column, which is why removing the water — drainage — is more effective than resisting it.
Perched water table
Water sitting on top of a low-permeability layer above the true water table. It produces seasonal basement water in places where the real groundwater is far below, and it is easy to misread as "the water table is high".
Footing drain
IRC R405: "Drains shall be provided around concrete or masonry foundations that retain earth and enclose habitable or usable spaces located below grade." The stone extends at least 1 foot beyond the footing and 6 inches above it.
Group I soils
The Unified Soil Classification System grouping — well-drained ground or sand-gravel mixtures — that triggers the one drainage exemption in the section. Named here because it is the exact circumstance under which the code accepts no drain.
Dampproofing
Dampproofing resists moisture and vapor. It is the baseline requirement for below-grade walls enclosing usable space.
Waterproofing
Waterproofing resists liquid water and bridges cracks and joints, and is required instead of dampproofing where a high water table or other severe soil or water conditions are known to exist.
Efflorescence
White crystalline salt left where water moved through masonry or concrete and evaporated. Evidence of past water movement, readable on a dry day months afterwards.
Backfill
The soil returned against the foundation after construction. It is looser and more permeable than the undisturbed ground beside it, which makes the perimeter of every house a preferential path for water — and is why what happens at the surface above it matters so much.
Sump and outfall
The collection pit and the place the water finally leaves. Systems fail at the outfall more often than anywhere else: frozen, blocked, discharging too close to the house, or discharging into a place that is itself under water when it rains hard.
Vapor retarder (crawl space)
Continuous ground cover in a crawl space. Ventilation openings are not required where the exposed earth is covered with a continuous Class I vapor retarder and one of the listed conditioning methods is provided. Relevant here because a wet crawl is a foundation water problem wearing different clothes — see the crawl moisture check.
Limits
What this tool cannot do
Real blind spots, named. Each is something the dropdowns above genuinely cannot see.
It cannot tell you which of the five sources you have. Where, when and whether the ground slopes toward the wall narrow it usefully. They do not settle it, and the plastic sheet test in the sequence above will tell you more in two days than the form can.
It cannot see your water table. Nothing here reaches your address, your seasonal groundwater, or your soil.
RETRIEVAL FAILED — the USGS publications warehouse returned HTTP 403 to automated retrieval on 5 September 2026.
The map is named here as the national reference that exists; we did not read it, and we publish no figure from it.
For a site-specific answer the correct lookup is the USDA NRCS Web Soil Survey, and even that is a general soil context rather than a reason a particular crack exists.
It cannot design a drain. Fall, capacity, outfall, filtration, and permission to discharge where you propose to discharge are site-specific and, for the last one, sometimes regulated. A drain designed from a dropdown is a trench with aspirations.
It cannot see a structural problem. Horizontal cracking, inward bowing and displaced block are outside what this page assesses, and they change the priority immediately. If you have those, that is an engineer now, not a drainage quote next month.
It has no price data. We hold no dataset of drainage or waterproofing jobs, bids or invoices, and we will not reprint the per-linear-foot figures that circulate on lead-generation sites to look authoritative.
It cannot see what is above it. A blocked gutter twenty feet up, a valley discharging onto one roof plane, a neighboring regrade, an irrigation zone on a timer. Any of these can be the entire explanation and none of them are on this form.
HyreFoundation does not waterproof basements, install drains, inspect foundations or perform any of the work described here, and takes no referral fee from anyone who does. That is exactly what allows this page to conclude that the right next step is a downspout extension and a wet season of watching.
How this calculator works
There is no multiplication. Three choices append questions. The verdict does not change:
verdict = not a product. Water first, then movement.
questions = lines that fire for wall, floor, window, rain, always,
grade toward the house, or unknown grade
+ a French drain is a designed pipe with an outfall
+ yard drainage that is not a foundation wall is HyreYard
never = this page will not sell you a drain from a dropdown
Every path appends the French-drain sentence and the HyreYard sentence. A SKU would be a lie about the lot, and a yard pond is not a foundation wall.
HyreFoundation does not waterproof basements, does not install French drains, and does not repair foundations.
What each input means
Inputs on this tool, in the order they appear on the form.
Input
What it is actually asking
Where
Wall, floor, window well, or crawl. Four different jobs. A wet lawn is not on this form. That is HyreYard.
When
With rain, or even when it is dry. Dry-weather water is a leak, a spring or irrigation. A storm drain will not find it.
Grade
Unknown, toward the house, or away. Unknown is valid and common. Toward the house is the cheap first question, with downspouts a close second. Six feet of downspout extension is not a pier.
Worked examples
Including one where the naive answer misleads, which is the example most calculators leave out.
Wet wall after rain, grade not yet walked
Where: wall. When: rain. Grade: unknown. Verdict: not a product. Water first, then movement.
Questions: a wet wall is hydrostatic pressure or a leak in the wall, interior paint is not the fix; tracks with rain so gutters, discharge and grade are the cheap questions; walk the lot in rain. Still not a product.
The useful next step is a storm walk with a camera, not a cart of interior drain tile.
Floor always wet, grade toward the house
The questions stack: water on a slab or basement floor after rain is often drainage and a drain tile, or a plumbing leak if it is not raining.
Water that runs when it is dry is not stormwater; grade toward the house is the first cheap question and six feet of downspout extension is not a pier.
Still not a product. If the house is a slab, plumbing testing before anyone talks about piers is how you avoid repairing it twice.
The one where a French-drain dropdown misleads
A tool that asks "basement wet?" and returns "you need 40 feet of French drain, add to cart." No outfall, no "is it rain," no grade, no plumbing. That is a wet trench, or an interior product sold as a diagnosis.
This page has no such SKU. If the water is in the yard and not on the wall, the honest link is HyreYard, not a foundation-wall kit. If you came here for a product, the refusal is the result.
What changes the result
Where, when and grade only change the questions, never the verdict. The verdict is always "not a product. Water first, then movement." A national "you need X linear feet of drain" would be a design we cannot see.
Downspouts are the cheapest lever on a lot of houses. A roof dumps a large volume in a storm onto whatever the elbow points at.
Pointing that water into a bed against the foundation is a common own-goal. Extensions, splash blocks and a legal place to send the water come before a trencher, and they come before piers.
Soil decides whether infiltration is even available. Heavy clay, compaction from construction, and a high water table all make "just let it soak" a slogan. NRCS Web Soil Survey is a start, labeled general. A hole with a watch is better. A product brochure is not a test.
Local considerations
Stormwater rules, whether you may connect to a municipal drain, and whether a grade change needs a permit are local.
The ICC drainage paragraph above is a model provision, not your inspector until the jurisdiction says so. Some cities treat work that changes drainage as a permit. Some HOAs forbid visible downspout extensions. Ask before you trench.
We do not ship a city table of products. The lot, in rain, is the local data. Yard water that never reaches the wall still belongs on HyreYard, not here.
When not to use this
Do not use this as a drainage design, a bid, or a shopping list. It cannot see soil, outfall, utilities, or a municipal connection.
Do not use it to buy a French drain. There is no French drain on this page. If a salesperson starts with the product, ask where the water goes after the pipe.
Do not use it as a structural opinion of a wet, cracked, or bowing wall. Water first, then an engineer who does not sell repairs if the wall is moving. The crack identification tool is pattern language, still not an opinion on your wall.
Do not use it for a wet lawn with a dry foundation. That is HyreYard.
HyreFoundation does not waterproof basements. Matching is still being built. The inquiry form is not a dispatch line.
Usually because water has nowhere useful to go: grade toward the wall, downspouts at the foundation, a clogged gutter, a window well that does not drain, or a high water table. If it only happens in rain, start there. If it happens in dry weather, think plumbing, irrigation or a spring.
Do I need a French drain?
Not necessarily. A French drain is perforated pipe in washed stone, wrapped against silt, sloped to a legal outfall. Gravel with no pipe, or a pipe with no outfall, is a wet ditch. Fix gutters and grade first, then have someone look at the lot. See drainage and grading.
What should I check first when my basement leaks?
Walk the lot during or just after rain. Note where downspouts discharge, whether the soil next to the house slopes toward the wall, and the state of gutters and window wells. Those are the cheapest causes to fix.
The water is in the yard, not on the wall. Is that a foundation problem?
Not usually. Yard drainage away from the foundation wall is a different question; use the HyreYard drainage diagnostic. Come back here if the water is on the wall, the floor, a window well or in the crawl space.
Why does water show up when it is not raining?
Because it is not stormwater. Likely sources are a supply leak, a sewer line, irrigation left on, or a spring. A rain drain will not fix a leak. Plumbing tests under a slab are how people avoid repairing the same house twice.
Will fixing gutters stop foundation movement?
Sometimes. It can stop new movement on clay soil, and it always protects whatever repair follows. A pier installed under a downspout that still dumps at the wall will be tested again. The repair method selector says the same.
Is a wet crawl space the same as a wet basement wall?
No. Standing water in a crawl space is usually drainage and grading before it is a liner problem; see the crawl moisture check. A wet basement wall is water pressure or a leak through the wall. Both start outside.
How much should the ground slope away from a foundation?
The 2021 IRC, as a model code, says the grade should fall at least 6 inches within the first 10 feet from foundation walls, with an exception where lot lines or barriers prevent it. Your city may have adopted or amended it, so ask the building department.
Can I just add soil to reverse the slope?
Carefully. Regrading next to a house can bury siding, send water to a neighbor, or cover the top of the foundation. Downspout extensions are cheap and often the first fix. Check local rules before moving earth against the wall.
Does HyreFoundation install drainage or waterproofing?
No. We do not repair, inspect, survey or waterproof, and matching with companies is still being built. For the service itself, see basement waterproofing.
Sources and methodology
Figures dated 26 August 2026. Last reviewed .
Foundation drainage (IRC R405) and dampproofing/waterproofing (IRC R406) (International Code Council, read via UpCodes, retrieved 2026-09-05. The drainage requirement, the washed-gravel envelope dimensions, and the single exemption for well-drained Group I soils. Model code only — adoption and amendment are local and foundation chapters are amended more than most.)
Expansive Soil and Rock (Colorado Geological Survey, retrieved 2026-09-05. Cited across this site for the moisture-driven mechanism behind soil movement, which is why water and structure are the same conversation.)
International Residential Code, Chapter 4 Foundations (R401.3 Drainage) (International Code Council, retrieved 2026-08-26. Model provision: lots graded to drain surface water away from foundation walls, grade falling not fewer than 6 inches in the first 10 feet (2021 IRC). Not a local rule until adopted. Not a French-drain specification.)
Web Soil Survey (USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service, retrieved 2026-08-26. Soil at the lot, labeled general. Infiltration is a property of that soil. Onsite investigation is needed for engineering applications. Not a kit.)
A brief guide to mold, moisture and your home (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, retrieved 2026-08-26. Cited for moisture as a household problem. Fix the water. Not a structural opinion and not a product selector.)
Yard drainage diagnostic (HyreYard, retrieved 2026-08-26. Canonical home for yard water that is not a foundation wall. This page keeps the wall, floor, window well and crawl.)