if I'm right, repairs would involve digging out the whole front of the house, tearing off the porch, busting the concrete slab, digging down to the foundation, and putting in a new drain tile system.

When they did the add on/covered deck, they tied the gutters from it to the existing drain tile. And the resulting water was too much for it to handle & it broke thru and was literally pouring thru the walls into the basement. (There was water spouting out of the foundation blocks up to 2' high....)

Instead of rerouting that, John BLOCKED the original drain tile so that the water from the deck can't go into it in front of the house buat the same time that blocked the water from the front of the house from exiting off to the garage side of the house with the water from the deck.

Now keep in mind that the ONLY exit that I've been able to find from the drain tile is that section that now onlly receives water from the deck. Any other water that goes into the drain tile (from the frontof the house) is trapped & floods it & comes into the basement.

He insists that there's an opening SOMEWHERE on the other end of the house for the water to exit but can't/won't show me where. I've looked. If one's there, I can't find it. And in previous years, we've dug out & put in new drains for the other downpipes because they were messing up the yard.

So, in my opinion, anything that basically seeps in against the foundation is filling the drain pipe & flooding in because it has nowhere else to go.

But I'm just a female so my opinion is obviously wrong. Just like I was wrong about the sewage line breaking where the concrete slab had forced it downward over 10".... It just took 2 years for me to find a plumber who would listen to me after more than I can count laughed at me & said that couldn't happen.