You should 100% wrap in fabric. I had to tear out a system that was not wrapped in fabric and all the dirt and stone were mixed together. Water doesn't go through rocks. It goes through air gaps. Also the fabric will not get clogged. Yes it will have dirt 100% pushing against it, that's ok. Yes I live in TN with lots of red clay.
Rather than just simply emulating some kind of installation style this companis installation seems adapted to an actual understanding of drainage. Now if we could all call it a trench drain instead of of French drain. Trench drain just make sense.
We’re about to purchase our first home, and it is on a negative grade. This video made perfect sense and seems easy enough for us to do. Thank you for sharing your knowledge
Thanks for your videos Chuck. I've had a drainage problem at the back of my property for years and now I know what to do to fix it. Thank you for sharing your knowledge!!!
Thanks for ideas! I'm in Florida, and driveway slopes below street level and water pools there, and creeps slightly into my garage. And it's nowhere near a drain line except for curb (it's about 30ft from road/curb and about 5 inches negative where there is a 4 slab connection (previous owners seemed to have done things the easy, and cheapest, way). So now I'm trying to figure out a cheap easy way for a short term solution to minimize flooding.
I have a roof valley that absolutely POORS roof runoff onto the side of our house and makes a small lake, burying our A/C condensation discharge outlet. 35 years and counting! After rain stops ground soaks it up in about a day, or little less. Not sure if I need to address this but it's been on my mind for 20 years!!
I believe this will help. My neighbor raised the driveway up about 1 ft. The water now runs off to the center of my property the to my house then on a low area the water runs under my home then out the other side. I have a pier and beam. I always thought it was from rain and bad luck. Then a water pipe broke at his property causing the water to run to my house. I would have not known why it was doing this until it happened. But they say it’s not their fault… so. Being a single woman I’m trying to figure this out. Thank you for sharing
Chuck, thank you so much! If you dig a trench at least 3 feet away from the foundation, it's ok to not go to the footer level, correct? The front of my house is facing a negative slope and the basement walls (the foundation) show signs of improper drainage. "Make sure that you do not put a French drain up against your house. This line's not deep enough. if you've got a basement issue, you need to be down deep - down at the footer level. If you install a French drain up against the side of the house, you will create more problems than you can imagine. Notice that we are at least 3 feet from that foundation wall."
Do you have a basement? If so be sure all the water drains out of your French Drain. Good downhill discharge is a must. Otherwise the water will seep down along the basement wall. If it’s a crawlspace better off doing it inside the crawl space
@@appledrains Thanks for the reply! We do have a basement. So with French drains the water risks seeping out of the perforations, correct? Is there a recommended depth, % slope, and distance from the house we should dig to avoid those problems?
Thank you for the video but could you explain please why we need to stay away from the house? I am going to install either french or trench drain but my space is limited so it will be pretty close to the house.
French drains that aren't positioned properly can actually trap water against your foundation, which could cause more problems than it solves if you have pier and beam or a basement. You want to direct water away from your house, so ideally your drainage is at least 5 feet out. I don't know what your situation is but for example on a slab with a negative grade (ie sloping toward your house) you would want to try and build up the soil so water flows away and down to the trench or French drain. Any drain should itself have a grade to it, so it doesn't just become a trap. If your space is limited, gutters are your first line of defense, along with downspouts directing the water at least 5 feet away to a drain. If you have room and are in a really soggy area, you can try a dry well, basically a big gravel-filled hole in the ground that you cover with turf or whatever, that acts as a permeable reservoir for water to leech back into to the ground or toward a sewer.
I have this exact issue and my question is where is the optimum placement ? I know you said @ least 3 ft from the foundation wall but would the most effective location for the trench be where the slope meets the flat and the water is flowing the most and not pooling in the flat farther away..? Glad you posted this as it is almost impossible for me to create any positve grade due to the location. Thanks,
Greetings Chuck! When you say "DONT NOT CREATE A FRENCH DRAIN" at the foundation of your home. Does this mean ALL homes, or just homes with basements???? Thanks for all you do!
A local business once told me that It is not recommended to dig any type trench near any type of foundation/support because it could lead to issues when the water falls below surface.
great great video's and advice for diy'ers/ i just don't get how the water in the drain is going to go up grade.? oh i see now water enters up grade and exits down grade around the yard w/ positive grade. i have neg grade all directions so i will need a basin and sump pump or dig dig dig up my newly planted area.. i think i will just cover the area w/ a canopy.
Need some type of French drain system to keep water out of garage since on one side of it has a negative piece of slab about 20ft long by 3 or 4 feet wide. The rest is dirt by is also slopes towards garage so water goes in when it rains..iam assuming trench have to have a slope for water to run down. U did laydown pipe under gravel right? Also since u mentioned to dig trench about 3 to 4 feet from foundation what would happen when it rains and where will the water that hits close to foundation go since trench is about 3-4 feet away from home/garage? How deep does this trench needs to be? Thank u
Our neighbor put in a french drain in the swale between our properties. Previously, the swale worked very well; it had a consistent slope, collected a lot of water from both yards. That water flowed over the surface along the swale and sent it across the sidewalk, away from our houses & driveways. But now there is no grass that some water flows over; it is a deep, rock filled trench that allows water to saturate the surrounding ground. It is effectively a giant hole in the ground where water collects, stays, pools, and soaks in to the ground quite deep, rather than water running over the ground and over the sidewalk, away from the houses like it used to. Our driveway has now started sinking and our sump pump runs often, when it rarely did before all the water was made to stay and saturate deeply. I have tried to explain why this idea is bad for both of our properties and for the municipal sidewalk, but he has left it there. I don't want to fight, so what can I do or install to protect my own property when the neighbor's channeling massive amounts of water directly underground every time it rains?
This a common problem! Without seeing the area, different to answer, but if you have downhill flow away from the area, a catch basin and pipe could potentially work.
what if behind the home is an even steeper grade into the neighbors yard? this is the only direction i could lead a drain but dont want to cause more problems elsewhere. The home behind us is a large distance from the back fence though. Any imput would be appreciated!
Not sure why some companies find the need to use corrugated pipe. It’s cheap, and breaks down over time. Also slows down the flow of water. Schedule 40 PVC is the way to go. Won’t clog, won’t gets smashed.
I'd guess (and that's all it is) those basins are in particularly low spots where he wants the water to drop immediately and directly into the system without having to perc through the gravel first. Hopefully Chuck will chime in.
This is a point of confusion for me as well. What effect will the debris from roof runoff and catch basin collection have on the perforated pipe? As far as I'm concerned, Chuck is "The Man" when it comes to drainage. But other contractors in the same field preach separating roof and surface collection water into a solid pipe. Just wondered what Chuck's take is on this.
Brian Bazata I just noticed there is one down spout hooked to the perforated system but the second downspout is hooked to solid pipe and carried away to daylight. When I did mine last year I thought Chuck said not to dump downspouts into perforated pipe so I kept them separate ..I could be wrong but I put my down spouts into solid pipe .i don’t really know the difference between open French drains and gravel trenches , I thought they were the same thing ?
And I used gravel on top just like this, I can't wait for a flash flood now lol
2 роки тому
Why do you make such disclaimer about causing more problems with French drains and footers etc. can you explain that more in a video? Like I’m in California no basement just crawl and clay soil and trying to adjust grade near the house
It’s actually pretty simple. If you put a French drain along the side of the house look like similar edit is not as deep as your footer, water will leak out. That gravel collects water. If there is not extreme slope away from the area, water will seep out and down along the footer causing more problems. Crawl space is best address from the inside. Footer pipe is laid along the inside perimeter at the footer level. Then to sump pump and discharged thru the walk out to the downspout drain or to street
2 роки тому
@@appledrains sounds good. My crawl is dry no flooding. However house has settled a ton over time and we just had to jack the house up and we put in a new sill and raised the house off the foundation more. However, I want to prevent that from happening in future water settling and soaking into the clay over time. I’m thinking of running a gravel drain like 4 feet from the footing on the outside. I guess a video would make the explanation more clear haha. Thanks anyways for the response. I just mean like sometimes the basics are the hardest things to find on UA-cam. You put out amazing content but like I want like how you would teach a brand new apprentice the foundational building blocks of drainage and grading so that we can build on it with more complex systems like you install. I don’t know if that makes sense.
@Max's Garage were you able to find more information or make progress with this? also in CA and the recent downpour we had had me think of putting in some safeguards from flooding and settling (none of the doors inside would close because the house settled so much, only recently has that gotten better). I wanted to know what you've done. I was initially thinking fench drain, but with so much confusion I think I would be happy with just surface drains and solid pipe to discharge it out the sidewalk.
Is that an old drain pipe (clay?) at the 1:46 screenshot on the corner of the home barely under grade? Wonder if those are around my home too.. and if they are hurting or helping & I just don't know... ?!
Doesn't seem like something NE friendly. I'm sure it was freeze and just cause it to pool again. I'll have to stick with dirt regrading. Thanks for the informational vid though.
@@osiyooverland then why put fabric then. I thought fabric was just around perforated pipe . if water going into sloped area toward house it will have dirt leaves etc . figure it needs fabric . I mean with or without you can have same problem . pipe can get clogged
@@johnanderson3746 i think its a case of damned if you do, damned if you don't especily for those of us with clay soil. Eventually the performance of the drain will degrade and we may have to replace it. I like the idea of using as many catch basins as possible and ideally with solid pipe to open air. Maybe even skipping the use of a "french drain" thats going to eventually fail and need to be replaced.
@@jerseyjim9092 very true I like idea of solid pipe cause those perforated black type ones just break down . I say the best would be to put those in have them go towards a spot for all the water to go to if you can't slope it downhill and have a sump pump pump all the water out to street or somewhere else outve way or underground . I saw one once the dug up ground like 6 feet filled with rocks and had water go there to work it's way down deep if you can't get it out to street .
@@johnanderson3746 i haven't heard of any longevity issues with the perforated pipe. I think it has its uses as in the open trench used by Chuck and for subsurface water collection. As far as the drywall, i have a few for my downspouts and they work good for normal rain. But in torrential downpours they can't handle the water and the surface bubbler backups can't keep up so the gutters overflow like Niagara falls😄
Sir is there any way you could send me a message on email would like to ask you a question we are in dire need of assistance. Thank you for your time in advance
You should 100% wrap in fabric. I had to tear out a system that was not wrapped in fabric and all the dirt and stone were mixed together. Water doesn't go through rocks. It goes through air gaps. Also the fabric will not get clogged. Yes it will have dirt 100% pushing against it, that's ok. Yes I live in TN with lots of red clay.
Rather than just simply emulating some kind of installation style this companis installation seems adapted to an actual understanding of drainage. Now if we could all call it a trench drain instead of of French drain. Trench drain just make sense.
We’re about to purchase our first home, and it is on a negative grade. This video made perfect sense and seems easy enough for us to do. Thank you for sharing your knowledge
We’re you successful with fixing the negative slope problem? Please update and let us know what helped or did not help in the process.
Same here, only it's our second home. My wife loved the house, but I noticed that negative grade in the back yard almost immediately.
Thanks for your videos Chuck. I've had a drainage problem at the back of my property for years and now I know what to do to fix it. Thank you for sharing your knowledge!!!
Thanks for ideas! I'm in Florida, and driveway slopes below street level and water pools there, and creeps slightly into my garage. And it's nowhere near a drain line except for curb (it's about 30ft from road/curb and about 5 inches negative where there is a 4 slab connection (previous owners seemed to have done things the easy, and cheapest, way).
So now I'm trying to figure out a cheap easy way for a short term solution to minimize flooding.
I have a roof valley that absolutely POORS roof runoff onto the side of our house and makes a small lake, burying our A/C condensation discharge outlet. 35 years and counting! After rain stops ground soaks it up in about a day, or little less. Not sure if I need to address this but it's been on my mind for 20 years!!
This was a great video! & the beautiful message at the end inspired me to get up and do it! Thank you!
Chuck, you got that right. I had to remove the fabric after heavy rains the french drain was clogging up.
Curious, did you use landscape fabric or a geotextile?
@@kevinmertel6108 The white landscape fabric.
@@kevinmertel6108 Landscape fabric
@@HB-yq8gy No wonder you had issues. You’re supposed to use non-woven Geotextile fabric, 3 to 4.5 ounce. Landscape fabric is for weeds.
I believe this will help. My neighbor raised the driveway up about 1 ft. The water now runs off to the center of my property the to my house then on a low area the water runs under my home then out the other side. I have a pier and beam. I always thought it was from rain and bad luck. Then a water pipe broke at his property causing the water to run to my house. I would have not known why it was doing this until it happened. But they say it’s not their fault… so. Being a single woman I’m trying to figure this out. Thank you for sharing
It’s a great project and I know you can do this! Takes some work but it will work to help collect the water
Nice video, I only wish you had shown what the perforated pipe looks like.
Chuck, thank you so much! If you dig a trench at least 3 feet away from the foundation, it's ok to not go to the footer level, correct? The front of my house is facing a negative slope and the basement walls (the foundation) show signs of improper drainage. "Make sure that you do not put a French drain up against your house. This line's not deep enough. if you've got a basement issue, you need to be down deep - down at the footer level. If you install a French drain up against the side of the house, you will create more problems than you can imagine. Notice that we are at least 3 feet from that foundation wall."
Do you have a basement? If so be sure all the water drains out of your French Drain. Good downhill discharge is a must. Otherwise the water will seep down along the basement wall.
If it’s a crawlspace better off doing it inside the crawl space
@@appledrains Thanks for the reply! We do have a basement. So with French drains the water risks seeping out of the perforations, correct? Is there a recommended depth, % slope, and distance from the house we should dig to avoid those problems?
Thank you for the video but could you explain please why we need to stay away from the house?
I am going to install either french or trench drain but my space is limited so it will be pretty close to the house.
French drains that aren't positioned properly can actually trap water against your foundation, which could cause more problems than it solves if you have pier and beam or a basement.
You want to direct water away from your house, so ideally your drainage is at least 5 feet out. I don't know what your situation is but for example on a slab with a negative grade (ie sloping toward your house) you would want to try and build up the soil so water flows away and down to the trench or French drain. Any drain should itself have a grade to it, so it doesn't just become a trap.
If your space is limited, gutters are your first line of defense, along with downspouts directing the water at least 5 feet away to a drain.
If you have room and are in a really soggy area, you can try a dry well, basically a big gravel-filled hole in the ground that you cover with turf or whatever, that acts as a permeable reservoir for water to leech back into to the ground or toward a sewer.
I have this exact issue and my question is where is the optimum placement ? I know you said @ least 3 ft from the foundation wall but would the most effective location for the trench be where the slope meets the flat and the water is flowing the most and not pooling in the flat farther away..?
Glad you posted this as it is almost impossible for me to create any positve grade due to the location. Thanks,
I agree, using some sort of diversion system at the top of the sidewalk would be beneficial along with this drain
Greetings Chuck! When you say "DONT NOT CREATE A FRENCH DRAIN" at the foundation of your home. Does this mean ALL homes, or just homes with basements???? Thanks for all you do!
I think anything that is NOT on a slab is what he's referring to. So, crawlspace or basement, would be a no-go.
A local business once told me that It is not recommended to dig any type trench near any type of foundation/support because it could lead to issues when the water falls below surface.
Do you need to add a base layer of gravel for the pipe to sit on top of before laying the pipe down and covering with the gravel?
It should help with keeping dirt out of the pipe and give the soil that washes in so.ewhere to settle.
great great video's and advice for diy'ers/ i just don't get how the water in the drain is going to go up grade.? oh i see now water enters up grade and exits down grade around the yard w/ positive grade. i have neg grade all directions so i will need a basin and sump pump or dig dig dig up my newly planted area.. i think i will just cover the area w/ a canopy.
How far should a drain pipe be to drain rain water off a driveway. And how deep should it be?
Do you have a video installing a French drain with property that drops of downhill?
Greetings from Midland NC! Do you cover the gravel with dirt or do you keep it exposed? Great video!
Need some type of French drain system to keep water out of garage since on one side of it has a negative piece of slab about 20ft long by 3 or 4 feet wide. The rest is dirt by is also slopes towards garage so water goes in when it rains..iam assuming trench have to have a slope for water to run down. U did laydown pipe under gravel right? Also since u mentioned to dig trench about 3 to 4 feet from foundation what would happen when it rains and where will the water that hits close to foundation go since trench is about 3-4 feet away from home/garage? How deep does this trench needs to be? Thank u
Great content! Ty Chuck
How would a french drain near the house be worse than no drain at all? (for basements)
Our neighbor put in a french drain in the swale between our properties. Previously, the swale worked very well; it had a consistent slope, collected a lot of water from both yards. That water flowed over the surface along the swale and sent it across the sidewalk, away from our houses & driveways. But now there is no grass that some water flows over; it is a deep, rock filled trench that allows water to saturate the surrounding ground. It is effectively a giant hole in the ground where water collects, stays, pools, and soaks in to the ground quite deep, rather than water running over the ground and over the sidewalk, away from the houses like it used to. Our driveway has now started sinking and our sump pump runs often, when it rarely did before all the water was made to stay and saturate deeply. I have tried to explain why this idea is bad for both of our properties and for the municipal sidewalk, but he has left it there. I don't want to fight, so what can I do or install to protect my own property when the neighbor's channeling massive amounts of water directly underground every time it rains?
This a common problem! Without seeing the area, different to answer, but if you have downhill flow away from the area, a catch basin and pipe could potentially work.
Why did you use perforated pipe instead of solid connected at the catch basin? Does that help drain quicker for that situation application?
Yes
My footing is 12 feet deep. Would I have to dig all the way to the footing for this to work?
Would using foam to lift our negative grade problem?
looks like check plastic corrugated pipe, any reason why you didn't use solid pipe?
what if behind the home is an even steeper grade into the neighbors yard? this is the only direction i could lead a drain but dont want to cause more problems elsewhere. The home behind us is a large distance from the back fence though. Any imput would be appreciated!
I might have to do this 🤔🤔🤔
So the gravel absorbs wager and raise it up then it all drop on The drain. So gravels round the foundation acts like a Folter
Do you work in Melbourne Florida? If not is there someone else you can recommend?
Not sure why some companies find the need to use corrugated pipe. It’s cheap, and breaks down over time. Also slows down the flow of water. Schedule 40 PVC is the way to go. Won’t clog, won’t gets smashed.
Why is there only perforated pipe in front of the house and not all the way along the trench?
How deep is the trench excavated?
Would a swale also work?
I don’t understand why the catch basin was needed if you have an open gravel trench??
I'm confused about that also. I could see if the catch basins were connected to solid pipe as in a 2 pipe system.
I'd guess (and that's all it is) those basins are in particularly low spots where he wants the water to drop immediately and directly into the system without having to perc through the gravel first. Hopefully Chuck will chime in.
@@WildwoodSubRailfan YES!! That's Correct! Low Spots will collect water 1st so the catch basins is so important! Thanks for the comments guys!
This is a point of confusion for me as well. What effect will the debris from roof runoff and catch basin collection have on the perforated pipe? As far as I'm concerned, Chuck is "The Man" when it comes to drainage. But other contractors in the same field preach separating roof and surface collection water into a solid pipe. Just wondered what Chuck's take is on this.
Brian Bazata I just noticed there is one down spout hooked to the perforated system but the second downspout is hooked to solid pipe and carried away to daylight. When I did mine last year I thought Chuck said not to dump downspouts into perforated pipe so I kept them separate ..I could be wrong but I put my down spouts into solid pipe .i don’t really know the difference between open French drains and gravel trenches , I thought they were the same thing ?
What to do if i couldnt divert it to the back (downstream)?
How do you search for telephone, cable and sprinkler systems.
Call. 811
Have you ever used a flat flex drain? I used it because I have electrical wires right at a critical location
And I used gravel on top just like this, I can't wait for a flash flood now lol
Why do you make such disclaimer about causing more problems with French drains and footers etc. can you explain that more in a video? Like I’m in California no basement just crawl and clay soil and trying to adjust grade near the house
It’s actually pretty simple. If you put a French drain along the side of the house look like similar edit is not as deep as your footer, water will leak out. That gravel collects water. If there is not extreme slope away from the area, water will seep out and down along the footer causing more problems.
Crawl space is best address from the inside. Footer pipe is laid along the inside perimeter at the footer level. Then to sump pump and discharged thru the walk out to the downspout drain or to street
@@appledrains sounds good. My crawl is dry no flooding. However house has settled a ton over time and we just had to jack the house up and we put in a new sill and raised the house off the foundation more. However, I want to prevent that from happening in future water settling and soaking into the clay over time. I’m thinking of running a gravel drain like 4 feet from the footing on the outside. I guess a video would make the explanation more clear haha. Thanks anyways for the response. I just mean like sometimes the basics are the hardest things to find on UA-cam. You put out amazing content but like I want like how you would teach a brand new apprentice the foundational building blocks of drainage and grading so that we can build on it with more complex systems like you install. I don’t know if that makes sense.
@Max's Garage were you able to find more information or make progress with this? also in CA and the recent downpour we had had me think of putting in some safeguards from flooding and settling (none of the doors inside would close because the house settled so much, only recently has that gotten better). I wanted to know what you've done. I was initially thinking fench drain, but with so much confusion I think I would be happy with just surface drains and solid pipe to discharge it out the sidewalk.
Digging is the hard part.. especially with a bad back. Wish they had better tool's
where y’all at? ground must be super soft to do by hand lol
I think he said Kansas?
Is that an old drain pipe (clay?) at the 1:46 screenshot on the corner of the home barely under grade? Wonder if those are around my home too.. and if they are hurting or helping & I just don't know... ?!
I had to seal those thing that lock water goes through them
I’m guessing this area gets no frost….because if it did, this solution would heave and freeze during a freeze thaw freeze etc scenario.
LOL
Guy in Michigan has you so fooled!
Why wouldn't you use the solid pipe all the way around?
What does negative grade mean?
When the slope of the run yard runs towards the house.. water floods crawl space, basement and cause damage in the home
Doesn't seem like something NE friendly. I'm sure it was freeze and just cause it to pool again. I'll have to stick with dirt regrading. Thanks for the informational vid though.
don't understand why u don't use filter non geo woven fabric around pipe . thought that helps pipe not get clogged
fabric can get clogged therefore water cant get to your drain
@@osiyooverland then why put fabric then. I thought fabric was just around perforated pipe . if water going into sloped area toward house it will have dirt leaves etc . figure it needs fabric . I mean with or without you can have same problem . pipe can get clogged
@@johnanderson3746 i think its a case of damned if you do, damned if you don't especily for those of us with clay soil. Eventually the performance of the drain will degrade and we may have to replace it. I like the idea of using as many catch basins as possible and ideally with solid pipe to open air. Maybe even skipping the use of a "french drain" thats going to eventually fail and need to be replaced.
@@jerseyjim9092 very true I like idea of solid pipe cause those perforated black type ones just break down . I say the best would be to put those in have them go towards a spot for all the water to go to if you can't slope it downhill and have a sump pump pump all the water out to street or somewhere else outve way or underground . I saw one once the dug up ground like 6 feet filled with rocks and had water go there to work it's way down deep if you can't get it out to street .
@@johnanderson3746 i haven't heard of any longevity issues with the perforated pipe. I think it has its uses as in the open trench used by Chuck and for subsurface water collection. As far as the drywall, i have a few for my downspouts and they work good for normal rain. But in torrential downpours they can't handle the water and the surface bubbler backups can't keep up so the gutters overflow like Niagara falls😄
Sir is there any way you could send me a message on email would like to ask you a question we are in dire need of assistance. Thank you for your time in advance
Why wouldn't you use the solid pipe all the way around?