! ! ! See
Author's Notes at Bottom of Column
! ! !
Soil Drainage Solution: French Drain
Systems
Last year, I did some consulting work for one
of my readers here in Cincinnati. She had a massive drainage problem in her rear
yard. Half of the neighborhood's water was flowing through and over the soil
into her back yard. Her basement was leaking, the yard was soggy, and she had
flooding in heavy rains.
I designed a simple linear French drain
system to solve the problem. After seeing my design and asking some questions, I
got the feeling she wasn't convinced as to its ability to solve the problem. I
assured her it would work. She indicated that it had better as she intended to
hand dig the system. I gave her a handy tip on digging trenches and even let her
borrow my duckbill shovel. This tool and a handy square point spade are the only
shovels to use when digging trenches.
Eight weeks ago, I received the most
wonderful Thank You note in the mail. We had a somewhat wet winter with several
periods of heavy rain. My system captured and diverted all of the surface and
sub-surface water. Her basement was dry and the yard allowed you to walk in it
without leaving a shoe behind! She mentioned in the note that water rushed from
the outlet portion of the linear French drain like a fire hose. Needless to say
she was satisfied and most grateful.
Construction Methods
The woman who I am speaking of built the
entire system without any help. I visited the jobsite to inspect the trench
after the pipe was installed. She dug over 165 lineal feet of trench by hand
(working part time) in 2 months. It was hard work, but she accomplished the
task.
You can often do much of the work with a
trenching machine. These handy devices can be rented at a tool rental shop and
towed behind any car. Most tool rental places will even deliver it for you.
However, even with a trenching machine you still must do some work by hand. The
trencher does a majority, that is for sure! If you decide to use one, purchase a
sheet of 4 x 8 1/2 inch plywood. Rip the plywood in half lengthwise to yield two
pieces 2 x 8 feet. The trencher discharges dirt to one side of the trench while
digging. Place the plywood on the ground so the dirt piles up on it, not the
bare grass. It is a breeze to shovel the dirt from the plywood instead of the
grass. Remove all loose dirt from the trench and tamp the bottom of the trench
to compact the soil at the bottom.
Layout
If your trenching system requires different
bends and turns to go around houses, sheds trees, whatever, then your layout is
critical. If you do not dig the trenches properly, the pipe will not fit into
the fittings that go around the bends.
I always dry fit my pipe and fittings
together and lay them on top of the ground exactly as they will be installed. I
then use a can of bright orange spray paint to paint the grass right next to the
pipe. Always paint on both sides to make sure that you clearly mark the center
of the trench. This layout will save you hours of extra digging!
Location of the Piping
If you want to dry out a leaking basement or
a crawl space, then you must locate the linear French drain in such a way as to
capture all or most of the sub-surface water that is flowing towards your house.
If you have periods of flooding where surface water flows over your lawn, then
the drainage system must extend to the surface to capture this water.
Linear French drains that are intended to
stop water from entering a house need to be located approximately 4 - 6 feet
away from the foundation if possible. It is not necessary or recommended that
they be placed closer to the house. You want the piping in soil that was not
disturbed during the construction of the house. Placing the piping too close to
the house also concentrates water flow at the foundation!
The Effective Depth
Linear French drains do not need to be
excessively deep to be effective. Remember, water movement through soils happens
where there are air voids. In many soils, air is most plentiful in the upper 24
inches.
You want to install the piping system so
that the pipe is level or has a slight downward slope to the discharge point. Do
not install the pipe at a consistent 24 inch depth if your lot goes up and down.
Doing this will trap water in the low spots of the pipe.
If your lot is rolling in nature, then you
will have to use a builder's level or laser to make sure your piping is level or
flows downslope. Do not underestimate the importance of this!
The Right Pipe
The pipe used to collect water from the soil
must be perforated. Once collected and in transit to the discharge point, you
can switch over to solid pipe. Only use perforated pipe in the areas to be
drained.
I happen to prefer the PVC pipe that has two
rows of holes in it. These holes must point down. Pointing them up is not right.
Do you think the water flowing through the gravel aims for and enters the holes?
Wrong! Some water may go in the holes but the majority goes past it and simply
saturates the soil until the trench fills with water to the height of the holes.
Gravel Fill
Once you have placed the pipe in the trench,
fill around the pipe with 1 inch washed gravel to within 1 or 2 inches of the
surface. Cover the gravel with a piece of sod. Do not place any dirt in the
trench. Water traveling through the soil will find this gravel and immediately
fall down to the pipe. The large voids around the 1 inch gravel will accommodate
a rapid flow of water.
If you have to bring the trench system to
the surface to capture surface water, dig out soil to make a path. Use colored
gravel for the path placed around fieldstone or stepping stones. It will make a
unique attraction and landscaping feature in your yard.
Author's Notes:
You may wonder if my advice is worth anything. Well, read what
Jim Sanders wrote to me when he was at the end of his rope:
"Hi, I just wanted to write to give you the results of my
"Trench Drain". I have had a wet crawlspace for 15 years. Water would
fill the crawlspace at times, so we actually had to drill weepholes at
the base so that it would enter the basement and eventually, the sump
pump.
I have tried everything. Several contractors said that the
only thing we could do was to bring the water into the house via
drainage tile and let it enter the sump pump. That would work, but
because I live on a 6' elevation, there is no reason that I should have
water problems. It became like clockwork...when it rained, we would
rush home from the lake or wherever we were vacationing so that we
could be prepared to start the backup generator, in case the power
failed. We even had our alarm company put a sump alarm on our system,
so they could notify us if we had a power failure. Battery backup was
not an option, because sometimes we loose power for days and during any
rain, our sump would run every 7 minutes...just like clockwork.
I found your site and read the article on the trench or French
drain. At first, it sounded a bit like "holistic healing" to me. I
failed to understand why a 2 ft. deep trench, 4 ft. away from the house
would do any good. How could this simple thing correct an extreme water
problem that has plagued me for years, cracked my foundation, settled
my garage floor and ruined almost every vacation?
|
| The
Linear French Drain trench running from the house. PHOTO CREDIT: Jim
Sanders |
I decided "what the heck". I had to dig by hand using a
trenching spade and a pick-axe, because the builder back-filled our
property with brick and blacktop. It took quite a bit of time. Because
the ground level varies so much on that side of the house, I was not
able to achieve exactly 2 ft. deep. It varied from 18" to 30" in spots,
but the slope was downhill. The trench is about 80 ft. long. At times,
I thought about filling it all in, because I just didn’t
believe that it would work.
I stoned it, put tile in, and filled it with #1 round stone. I
socked the pipe just for safety measure and I also used geotext fabric
on top, so I could cover with dirt and grass. I also ordered some clay
and pitched from the house to the drain.
|
| After
a
short rain, water is running away from the house. PHOTO CREDIT: Jim
Sanders |
Result?
For the last month, we have had 7 or 8 torrential rains, the worst of
which was last night. It rained so hard, that our lawn washed out in
spots because of the high clay content. Our sump pump, that normally
ran every 7 minutes during and after rain, has
not turned on
for 4 weeks. The silt at the bottom of the sump well is now
dry and cracking. Our crawlspace has not shown a trace of water or even
moisture.
Since I couldn’t see correcting the foundation
cracks or the garage floor settling and tilting until I corrected the
problem's source, I waited to see if the trench drain worked first.
This week, I had a company come in and perform sort of a
"mud-jacking" technique on the garage floor, which worked perfectly.
Also, during the past few weeks, I parged the cracks in the foundation.
|
| A
dry
sump pump. PHOTO CREDIT: Jim Sanders |
I
just wanted you to know how this worked. I stressed for many years over
this issue and the solution was nowhere near as difficult as I thought
it would be.
As a side note, I went to the end of the drain tile during a
hard rain to see what was happening. Water was running out of the drain
tile in about the same exact volume that it previously ran out of the
weepholes in my crawlspace. This winter will be interesting, because
last year, the ground next to the house was so saturated that during a
thaw, my sump would run constantly. I'm guessing that the ground
between the trench and the house will probably be drier now going into
this winter."
- Jim Sanders, Upstate area - New York
