Drainage & Weeping Tile Digs

When a basement leaks, the fix often starts with a machine: digging down along the foundation to reach the weeping tile, or across the yard to carry water away. It is a deep, narrow dig right beside the house, which makes it one of the jobs where WorkSafeNB's trench rules matter most.

Under Regulation 91-191, a trench or excavation 1.2 m or deeper that a worker enters must be shored, braced or caged, cut in solid rock, or sloped or benched to within 1.2 m of the bottom at no steeper than 1 m of rise for each 1 m of run. Shoring has to be certified by an engineer. Excavated soil has to stay at least 1.2 m back from the edge. A foundation dig is exactly where a worker ends up in a deep trench, so ask how the crew will handle it.

Locates matter too. Your own wires and pipes, like a line to a garage or a buried downspout drain, are not marked by NB Power or Info-Excavation. Tell the excavator what you know is there.

Near water, the WAWA permit applies before any ground disturbance within 30 m of a watercourse or wetland. No New Brunswick-wide rule on where weeping tile may discharge was found, so ask your municipality.

Few prices are published for New Brunswick. Machine time is the best-published price, about $65 to $150 an hour for a mini excavator with operator and $150 to $250 for a standard machine. No New Brunswick per-foot figure for drainage work was found.