Can something tell me what is likely going on before I pay for an inspection?
What is probably causing the water
Eight questions you can answer standing in your own basement, turned into the causes that are consistent with them — ranked so the ones that cost a weekend are named before the one that costs an excavation. It ends by telling you the cheapest next step you have not taken yet.
What you enter
- Where the water is, and exactly where it appears
- When it appears relative to rain, and what it looks like
- Roughly how old the house is, and where the downspouts go
- Whether the drain has ever been flushed, scoped or replaced
How it is calculated
- Deterministic rules, written out in the cartridge engine — no model and no score pretending to be a probability
- Causes are ordered by likelihood and then by what they cost to deal with, cheapest first
- The next step is always the cheapest one you have not done: watching it rain comes before paying for anything
What it is not
- It cannot diagnose your house. Nothing that cannot see inside the pipe can.
- It does not know your soil, your water table or what a previous owner buried.
- Dirty water and water without rain are sent elsewhere: those are not drainage questions.
Local facts this tool reads
Every figure below is quoted from the source shown or is our labelled estimate. Verified dates are the day we last checked the source; a figure whose check is overdue is withheld rather than shown.
- What the Code says about the ground around the house
- The building must be located, or the site graded, so that water will not accumulate at or near the building
- Surface water is a separate problem from subsurface drainage, and is much cheaper to fix
- Province of British Columbia (BC Codes) · quoted · verified 2026-09-22
- What older Greater Victoria houses have in the ground
- A single 4-inch pipe, sometimes 3-inch
- Clay tile and concrete pipe were laid in short lengths with open joints — the same joints that let water in let roots in
- RainTek Drainage & Waterproofing (Victoria) · quoted · verified 2026-09-22
- Camera inspection (drain scope) in Greater Victoria
- From $295
- The lowest published figure we can cite; a longer run or a difficult access point costs more · Ask whether you receive the video and a written report
- RainTek Drainage & Waterproofing (Victoria) · quoted · verified 2026-09-22
- Where a foundation drain is allowed to discharge
- To a sewer, a drainage ditch or a dry well
- A dry well may be used only where the natural groundwater level is below the bottom of the dry well, and must be at least 5 m from the foundation (Sentences 9.14.5.3.(1) and (2))
- Province of British Columbia (BC Codes) · quoted · verified 2026-09-22
Questions this tool answers
- drain scope victoria bc
- perimeter drain inspection victoria bc
- wet basement diagnosis
Your next step
Decide whether a camera inspection is the right next spend
What to ask before you signRelated tools: Scope, clean, repair or replace
Guides that use this tool
- Water in your basement in Victoria: what it isWater showed up in my basement or crawl space. Is the perimeter drain the problem, or is it something else?
- Wet crawl space in Greater VictoriaMy crawl space is wet. Is that the perimeter drain, and what is actually required down there?
- Blocked, broken or old? Victoria perimeter drainsHow do I tell whether my drain is blocked, collapsed, or just old?
- Weeping tile vs French drain in BCAre a perimeter drain, weeping tile, drain tile and a French drain all the same thing?
- Scope, flush, repair or replace? Victoria drainsShould I get it scoped, flushed, repaired in one place, or replaced?
- Downspouts and your perimeter drain (Victoria)Can my downspouts drain into the perimeter drain, and where does that pipe end up?
Last updated 2026-09-22. Estimates are our labelled calculations from published local evidence; official figures are quoted from the sources shown. Methodology · Sources · Report a correction.