Tips For Installing A French Drain, THAT WORKS!

This property previously had a french drain installed along the base of the foundation for relieving the same drainage issue we are addressing here. With the original drain however, we see two issues. One issue is the location of the drain. French drains are intended to collect and direct water. By placing a french drain across the base of the foundation, water is collected and pushed down the side of the foundation. The second issue was this drain currently has soil and moss covering the surface level. Given the high clay content of the area, this simply seals the drain off from water from entering.
Here, we graded the slop of the landscape away from the home, with the lowest point between the house and the bank being our french drain trench. We routed both our perforated french drain pipe and our solid downspout exit through the same trench for simplicity, finally filling and surfacing the drain with 3/4 gravel. This drain, with its gravel surface, is disguised as a walkway however, connecting the patio in the rear, to the sidewalk at the front entrance.
Additional landscaping included mulching around the home and the removal of several large trees, brush, and leftover construction materials.
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[@jryanr2010]

Music is too loud. It's hard to hear what you're saying.

[@jamesbond0004]

lovely hammer to mail in pins

[@lawn-n-orderlandscaping1389]

😂 whatever works. Usually it’s a palm that hammers it in but every once in a while a rock is subbed in. There’s a hammer in the truck but here we are…

[@jimgray6166]

Hey guy with the rock. Get a hammer!

[@lawn-n-orderlandscaping1389]

Luckily it was soft enough to scratch through. That would've been the next option, but time to go get one vs a slower scratch method... Ended up being faster to dig through it.

[@moodyp18]

Who ever was using that mini-x tell him he will have much better stability if he will put the dozer blade down. Just trying to help, I run one everyday. Good video, I learned a lot

[@lawn-n-orderlandscaping1389]

Thats the big man in charge! You aren't wrong and it definitely helps, I just dont think he minds rocking around a bit. Happy to hear you learned something! Thats what its here for.

[@joeshmoe7789]

How much fall on each pipe?

[@lawn-n-orderlandscaping1389]

Judgement comes In a lot here. 1 Inch per 10feet is "required". I think we had 4-6" here due to how much water we were dealing with. Larger pipe, deeper trench, more slope for faster water removal.

[@joeshmoe7789]

@@lawn-n-orderlandscaping1389 1" per 10' is required for house plumbing, but not for residential drainage. It is a good rule of thumb, but will work with less if need be. The steep 4-6" is fantastic for the drain pipe. But both the solid drain pipe and perforated pipes appear to be pitched the same. At 4-6", most of the french drain is useless. A french drain pipe needs the absolute minimum pitch or fall possible. Water will never reach the high end of the pipe. The lower end of the pipe is the only part that will do anything. Water that gets under the high end of the pipe will flow thru the gravel and into the ground and back to the house.

[@lawn-n-orderlandscaping1389]

@@joeshmoe7789 theres simply a lot more factors than what textbooks teach, thats why I mentioned the 1" rule, its ridiculous in certain applications, this being one of them. Lots of packed clay and bedrock in this area with heavy downpours of 4-10" of rain, not to mention the farm land above. Best to get that water, as well as the downspout that originally dropped into the yard out of there regardless. Everyones got their own style of what works for their location though, sounds like youve found yours which is cool too!
Cheers

[@rexhargrove5172]

This is the best French drain installation I’ve ever seen and I’ve done hundreds

[@lawn-n-orderlandscaping1389]

Thank you so much! Hope we sparked some improvement ideas for you. If you have any tips for us too we are happy to listen. Its an ever evolving process and we have been putting them in for decades.

[@joeshmoe7789]

Why? He never mentioned the pitch or fall of each pipe. Big difference between the correct pitch of drain pipes and french drains pipes. Looks like the french drain pipe was pitched wrong.

[@danielcarmona9243]

Great video!!

[@lawn-n-orderlandscaping1389]

Glad you enjoyed it