FRENCH DRAIN - What's the BEST Pipe to use?

hey good morning chuck here with apple drains today let's take a look at different types of material used for rainwater drainage what works what works best there's lots of different kinds of material we're going to go over schedule 40 pvc we're going to go over thin wall pvc we're going to go over sdr 35 the fittings that fit we're going to use corrugated pipe show you the easy flow also take a look at this video i think it'll help you understand which pipes work best in all situations okay let's start with three different types of pvc pipe everyone's familiar with the four inch pvc scheduled 40 pvc everything's got a schedule on it when it's really big pipe then you've also seen the thin wall pvc okay thin wall pvc it says sewer pipe but anyways then we also have four inch sdr 35 can you see that sdr 35 okay before we start cutting the pvc there's something that you really need and that is a good sharp hacksaw blade so this hacksaw is made by lennox but the reason i mention all this is i i got this hacksaw 25 years ago they actually quit making this model which is sad but it's such a great saw that i mean it's it's been out in all the weather you can imagine all the things that it's been through in 25 years but they don't make it anymore so i really tell my guys that if you use my saws or my tools especially my saw you better put it back because this is such a great saw i have never had any problems with it it's just wonderful salt but anyways we need to go ahead and get a good blade so we need a good sharp hacksaw blade on this saw it's very important people will use a hacksaw to cut their pvc pipe and especially when you're out in the trench you may not have access to those tools so a hacksaw becomes your best friend and the secret to this it's not hard but the secret is you've got to cut clear through the pipe [Music] and you can see we've got a nice clean edge got to clean off the burrs you can use emery cloth sandpaper use your hand your hacksaw a lot of things take these burrs off but you got to do all that and now you've got a piece of pipe that's ready to work so another great way is to use your reciprocating saw there are some problems with this because the blade tends to bounce around a lot [Music] [Applause] but it makes a pretty good cut as you can see but you can see that it makes a pretty good straight cut as well and you can see it makes a nice clean cut you know many years ago before i started apple drains i actually worked for roto-rooter and what i found out was we cleaned thousands and thousands and thousands of lines every year roots they do get in to pvc no matter what don't be fooled they will get in here glued it doesn't matter they seek water they'll get into this pipe and they do have to get it cleaned the chances are less in the pvc but they do get in there so keep that in mind so a properly coupled pipe you can see how clean this pipe is right here you see how clean that is all the way around very flush very even it is halfway through your coupling halfway through that coupling and it would be glued and there would not be a gap a lot of times this is what you'll find an improperly installed coupling will look like this can you see that white line you see how far back the piece of schedule 40 is from the white line even if another piece comes to that line there's going to be a gap there and as debris comes down the line it gets stuck there it also allows the roots to penetrate even easier these are common mistakes that we see when we come out to work on these systems that have schedule 40 pvc either the homeowner or even perhaps you know an inexperienced guy came out here and he made this mistake he did not put that coupling together properly to begin with so if we are cleaning a root system from schedule 40 pvc imagine what it's like cleaning a root system out of corrugated pipe sdr 35 this is a this is a great material also good hacksaw okay good blades real important and the secret is to cut all the way through try not to tilt your saw if you do it's going to come off at an angle nice clean cut nice clean cut very square easy for the do-it-yourselfer very easy so cutting the thin wall pvc it's kind of the same as the schedule 40 and it's a lot easier to cut you can see the hacksaw a good sharp blade is going to make a world of difference notice i cut clear through i cut all the way through and did not stop and you can see you can see how clean of a cut that is yeah we need to clean off the burrs but it's just like that brand new section very straight very clean easy to work with this is four inch corrugated and you can see it's a very strong material that's why they've got their ridges in here that gives it all the support kind of like a bridge and an arch the arch is what gives the bridge support same thing hacksaw we want to cut square down through here nice full length of the saw [Music] and always cut clean through if you do you'll have a very nice piece of pipe all the way around very splash and this will work into any fitting that you need okay i think you know that the schedule 40 is not going to do anything when i stomp on it but let's just stomp on it to find out this is schedule 40 pvc it doesn't do anything right so let's try the next piece of pipe this is sdr 35 and again this is a scheduled pvc pipe you'll know you see this a lot it's green you see it inside the hardware stores you probably even see it on the side of the road let's stomp on it and see what it does absolutely nothing right same as the schedule 40 pvc let's go to thin wall pvc and see what happens thin wall pvc [Music] let's look at that in slow motion okay can you see how it kind of went out of round and it's still out of round but you can see i'm just stomping on it and it definitely can get squished right that's just me stomping on the pipe next let's go ahead and use a piece of corrugated ads corrugated i'm gonna stomp on it you'll see things shake you know it's the same right can you see that it has a little indentation just like the thin wall had the little indentation but it's super strong material so you know what's the best one to use for the rainwater drainage system so you know the schedule 40 pvc that thing there's no way i'm going to be able to even dent that pipe this sdr 35 pretty much the same way and then we've got the corrugated and then we have the thin wall pvc you know what they're pretty strong materials right but which one really works the best you know there's two choices my choice back in the late 80s we started to install corrugated pipe it's much more cost effective to run corrugated pipe or the thin wall pvc you'll see a lot of jobs where we you know on my videos where we run the thin wall pvc and the corrugated pipe's great it comes in hundred foot rolls it can easily make you know uh if it's if your trench isn't perfectly straight it's kind of hard to turn this piece but if your trench isn't perfectly straight you can bend the pipe a little makes it a great also a great pipe to install it's not as strong as thin wall pvc all of the pipe the hdpe that's high density polyethylene makes no difference what kind of pipe it is they're all the same and you know you can stomp on them and prove it to yourself if you go to menards if you're up north take a piece of pipe out of there stomp on it see what it does why not right um but let me show you one more stomp test that people have been criticizing and really curious about is is the quick and easy drain let me show you how strong that stuff is it's amazing how strong this pipe is okay here's a piece of the easy flow the quick and easy drain it's an old piece been laying out in the yard for a long time but let me just show you i'm going to stomp on it and take a look at this you see that little depression well that's styrofoam peanuts and you can see if nothing happened to them all i did was displace the peanuts this stuff is so strong it is unbelievably strong and you know there's a lot of people asking me this not strong enough i promise you that this material is very very strong and will last a lifetime but by far the best pipe to use if you really want that long lasting downspout drain french drain that would be to run the sdr 35 this material is so strong that you're safe no matter what you drive over in the yard and we even put it underneath of driveways uh so that people can drive over that this this works so good this is the best material and what's great about it and what's great about the sdr35 is it's available with the thin wall fittings so it fits all the fittings fit directly onto the pipe it works great whether it be the tee or maybe it's a downspout adapter fit right on there best material best thing to use is the sdr-35 it is much more cost efficient to run the corrugated pipe which holds up extremely well there's no problem with this pipe it comes in hundred foot rolls you know it's just it's beautiful pipe you can see how i can bend it it's just perfect pipe for that you know when i pull up to an estimate and i'll use a downspout drain as the example when i see that there is schedule 40 pvc down in that ground underground and say that they want to add another downspout they want to add something to the system remember the downspout drain is the most important drain in all rain water drainage systems everything really should connect to the discharge of the downspout everything whether it be a yard drain a french drain the sump pump channel drains all these things should really connect to the downspout drain which leads out to the street so really there's just one line that goes out to the street but let's just say they wanted to add another downspout first i smile i say wow you guys did a great job schedule 40 super super strong best material on the market but then i cringe because i know how much work it will be for me to come in there cut this pipe while it's underground attach a tee to add the next downspout and schedule 40 back over to the other downspout it's tremendous amounts of work tremendous and it's not needed schedule 40 is not the material that we should use for the water drainage system it is there's no reason for it at all number one it doesn't fit any other material in other words the corrugated pipe and the thin wall pvc we have fittings that we can put these two pipes together and yes they do make a fitting to do this i'll show you that in a second but it's so much work to come back and do this and like i said tree roots they get in here it can freeze if it's not deep enough if you're up north it can still freeze it can heave up out of the ground all those things if you there's so many problems in using schedule 40 pvc that is much better to use a different material for your rainwater drainage system in a plumbing you know a sewer line yes i recommend it highly i would not use anything else schedule 40 pvc is the way to go but remember that is a different type of system this is rain water drainage that we're talking about and schedule 40 pvc it is not the material that we need to use another problem with schedule 40 are the fittings you know just for example let's say that you wanted a downspout adapter you've got a three by four downspout and you want a downspout adapter well there's no fitting made for that and this will not fit there's this will not fit so you've got to have an adapter to go from the thin wall pvc to the schedule 40 pvc i've shown you these many times these are called no hub adapters and we can put this around the schedule 40 and then we can put the thin wall in here and really crank down this clamp to make that tight and that's one way to make the adapter probably the best way to make the adapter and then you put a piece of thin wall and you can put your 3x4 adapter up to your downspout there's so many disadvantages of using schedule 40 pvc the list is pretty long so even in scheduled 40 pvc glued and sealed properly roots can get into this line maintenance is so important you know years ago before i opened up apple drains i worked for roto-rooter and we cleaned thousands of drains a year thousands of drains whether it be schedule 40 cast iron terracotta all these materials makes no difference roots get into these systems and you've got to maintain that line we send the steel cable down the line cut out all the roots and then it's good to go for about seven more years maybe eight years whatever but you've got to maintain the line schedule 40 it can get roots in it it doesn't matter okay so a quick review the sdr 35 is a really great pvc pipe for rain water drainage best applications are actually under a drive you can run this in the yard as well it works great it'll probably last much longer than the corrugated pipe it will probably last much longer but it does come in 10 foot sections so you have a lot more chances of roots penetrating each seam or each coupling it does come with a belled end so you can slide pieces together but that does not stop the roots it doesn't tend to belly as much so if you're seeing if your trench settles you won't end up with a belly you're going like that but again this is probably the best material to put in the rainwater drainage system thin wall pvc this is also a great material we saw i stomped on this as hard as i could and it just kind of dimpled it and then it went out of round once that happens by the way once something goes out of round it's going to get worse weight of the ground ground pressure tree roots will wrap around it and it will continue to collapse so much it becomes flat as a pancake corrugated pipe you saw me go ahead and stomp on this it hardly moves it at all but again once there is some compression in that pipe it will get worse so if that happens if something ran over it or usually a tree root wraps around the pipe and it begins to squish that pipe it just it takes a long time but the roots grow around the pipe and they will collapse the pipe other heavy equipment can also collapse the pipe or if it goes under another pipe i've showed you videos of why this stuff collapses when it goes under another pipe and then they backfill sometimes that pipe that's on the top it will start to crush this and it will crush you know a huge section of the pipe so but yeah there's lots of different ways to use the pvc out there schedule 40 pvc i strongly recommend that you do not use schedule 40 pvc whether you live in alaska or whether you live down here in florida neither one of those places needs schedule 40 pvc for your rainwater drainage system one final note this corrugated pipe which we've been using for i don't know how many years nearly 25 years you know it works so good it's made of polyethylene there's a big difference this is not pvc there's pot it's polyethylene and it becomes very strong there is no pipe there is no pipe that is corrugated made of pvc just to let you know hey this is chuck with apple drains reminding you that if you believe you can do something i guarantee you can do it have a great day [Music] do [Music] you

Channel: Apple Drains

Views: 57,443

Rating: 4.6760125 out of 5

Keywords: best pipe for french drain, sch 40 PVC, thin wall pvc pipe, corrugated pipe, sewer pipe, Apple Drains, yard drain, french drain, catc basin, channel drain, downspout drain

Id: cRNYFlsjiSM

Length: 21min 52sec (1312 seconds)

Published: Sun Jan 03 2021