High capacity french drain Installed and shown in action

this is shawn with gate city foundation drainage we are on a job today in high point so let's take a look at what we got going on so this backyard so we have a ton of water coming from here and it comes under the fence and it just turns us into a huge pond right here and then as soon as this pond fills up it heads this way and then washes out along down the the yard there so we are going to put in a high capacity french drain across here we're going to put two perforated pipes and we're going to dig it about 30 inches wide so it's a little bit more than we usually do the other thing we've got going on is water from this back neighbor here just washes across here and so you can kind of see right there let me see if i can get a little bit closer so right here the water just stands right here and then floods right across here and floods across their backyard so we are going to take the water or we're going to take the dirt that comes out of the french drain and we're going to pack it along this fence here try to build this up into a little bit more of a berm to keep the water so eventually sometimes the water goes this way too so if we can just kind of help it get directed that way and out of this yard that's what we're going to do so just tons and tons of water back here and it's been raining the last couple days so things are pretty wet so we're going to try to get this done today for them and see how we do take a look at these pictures that the homeowner sent me and these are pretty much showing just exactly how much water is sitting right there up against the fence and so here's another view you can see with that once it fills up against the fence it starts to flow across the backyard here and look at those brand new steps they had to replace the steps because so much water was going through there that it destroyed the old steps and so this is this is what we're trying to fix here check out this video that i shot the day i went out to do the quote for the customer so this is the front yard here at the driveway and take a look at all the water that's just standing right here and so this is the water that's coming from behind the fence in the backyard there and the homeowner is telling me that the water is just flowing across the backyard and just the driveway is flooding everything's flooding back there and so the whole yard is just really flooded right there and do you know where it's coming from on your neighbor's side because it seems like they're getting a whole lot over here too yeah because i mean i can see it all and it kind of runs along a fence in [Music] here maybe just put it under the bucket there you go how's that ball man lane wasn't available today [Music] good so [Music] so so okay [Music] uh oh yeah every day gloria's saying great business [Music] so you guys are gonna bring her [Music] not oh a dude i just finished digging this trench so i wanted to take a minute and talk about what's going on here so the first thing is we're hitting dry dirt right here and so if you look here we have some really really wet dirt right up in this area and then pretty quick we get into some dry dirt so that means you're in a good spot for a french drain because the water is not going down into the into the ground it's it's stopping by this layer here of impermeable dirt so you can see right there the other thing that's happening is this trench is starting to fill up with water and so what this trench represents in a french drain is it represents a low point where the water is going to flow through the gravel and then it will fill up the trench and then it will flood into the holes on the pipe and it will go down downhill so this should be a pretty good spot for a french drain no i'm good the same thing is going on up here by the fence this thing is just filling up with water so that's a good sign that means that we're going to be collecting the water into the trench and sending it out of here with our pipe so we've got really really good fall down to the curb there and so the homeowner said that there's a tremendous amount of water coming across here so i dug the the trench a little bit wider than normal i did 30 inches instead of 24 and we are going to place two perforated pipes in there double the capacity so we should be able to move a ton of water with that look here look at that water flowing through there oh here it comes so look at all that water flowing through there that's a good sign [Music] we put down a first layer of gravel here and then we get our pipe leveled where we want it and the first layer of gravel makes it easy to level it we want that pipe fairly level just falling just a little bit and so we spent a lot of time trying to get this right with our friend's drain when we're setting it come on it was kind of tricky starting out with this trench because right there at the gate the i had to trench pretty deep to get the fall that i wanted but i got through it okay and the hoa was pretty strict over here so they only allowed for one pipe to come through the curb so you'll see that coming up later in the video all right we've made a little bit of progress here we've got both of our pieces of perforated pipe in here we've got them just kind of stabilized with some gravel and these things are just barely falling just about a sixteenth of a bubble right there and so we've got that going the whole way and then so there's just barely a 16th of a bubble and over here we're getting into our y and then we're transitioning into solid once we get out of the french drain we're going to aggressively fall so you can see now we're at a full bubble there right there on that coupling or that why [Music] [Music] we are just about finished up for today we got to get some more gravel in here so there's our outfall and now originally i had said we would catch these two gutters right here but when i showed up this morning the homeowner said that the husband didn't want to get didn't want to do that so he was worried about the gas line being right there and he was worried about us tearing up more of the yard so we didn't do that although anytime you're running a pipe buy a gutter you might as well get it so that's what the homeowners wanted so here is our french drain and we probably need another couple tons of gravel so we'll get that done tomorrow so we did two independent legs of front of a perforated pipe there and there's our two clean outs and so we're going to leave our board set up for tomorrow because we'll be back here tomorrow we got this little low spot filled in here and then critically we got this berm built up on the back side over here so this is hopefully going to stop the water from flooding across the neighbor and make it go along the fence here once it gets to this point it's pretty good to go so we're just getting cleaned up now we are back out here on this job it's the next day and we had to get some more gravel so here's where we're at we just need to top off a little bit of gravel here and we will be finished with this job so i wanted to show you what just arrived last night which would have been super nice to have yesterday so we got finally got my concrete buggy and this thing would have made much easier work of moving all that dirt around instead of using those wheelbarrows but it showed up last night at 8 30 pm so we're gonna give it a try with gravel today come on [Music] [Music] oh there you go dump it [Music] so [Music] [Music] so i was worried about that happening so so so [Music] [Music] so [Music] we are finished with this job so we're just getting loaded up and let me show you how things turned out all right so there's our french drain so we went all the way to the fence with gravel we thought that would look a little bit more deliberate and we've got our two clean outs right here of course we drill holes in those to vent it so the homeowner is super excited about it and really likes the work we did over here we got this berm built up with the extra dirt and so we also filled in this low spot right here everything's still pretty wet and mushy but we built up this little berm right here across so that should stop that water the water was just coming through here and just running like a river and some of it would go that way so the berm here is to try to redirect the water from the neighbor and get all of it to go that way whereas before just a little bit of it went that way most of it came and washed across here and all the way across the driveway so can't wait to get back here in the rain and see how it's doing this is sean it is the next day and i'm back out here on this job to check on this it's been raining for probably about two hours now and so let's take a look so there's our run from our french drain and here's our outfall so take a look at that look at all that water so keep in mind that's all water that used to be landing in their backyard washing across under their stairs across their backyard and then across their driveway oh before we take a look at the back i want to look over here so this is doing the same thing it's always been doing just filling up with water and what it what it used to do it used to just wash across here and so let's take a look at what this side looks like which is a pond right there and then what the french drain looks like so look at that difference look at that okay the water just a second ago was running across here and i just pushed my boot right in there and look at that french drain taking that water so that's exactly why we don't use filter fabric and that's why we use tons and tons of gravel because the water just gushes through the gravel now if this water was trying to make its way through filter fabric and everything else and into a pipe it just wouldn't be flowing that well and so that's why we don't use filter fabric because it clogs up too fast i wanted to show you this this back area too here and see if our berm was doing what it's supposed to so look at all that water right there so that's what the berm is supposed to be doing is keeping that water out of here all right i just talked to the homeowner and she's very very happy she couldn't believe how much water was coming out of that pipe earlier today during the rainstorm and so she's really really happy with the results and now that the backyard is stabilized now she can move on and start doing some stuff that she wants to do now that she's not worried about water coming through here all the time and washing things away look at that still just flowing right through there pretty cool so it's pretty much stopped raining now it's barely sprinkling a little bit and look at all the water still coming through there so that's what this that's what this french drain is supposed to do it's supposed to give that water a easy path out of here instead of that water just hanging in the backyard after a big rain and during the big rain washing across now that water is being diverted out here it's being collected by the french drain and being delivered to the curb here by our solid pipe there that's exactly how a french train's supposed to work for collecting and draining non-point water sources like the neighbors

Channel: Gate City Foundation Drainage

Views: 2,045,450

Keywords: how to install french drain, french drain working, french drain during rain, yard drainage, french drain yard drain, greensboro french drain, French drain, Greensboro French drain, French drain alternative, flooding yard, French drain flooding, Greensboro flooding issues, PVC French drain, French drain best pipe, French drain pipe size, French drain pipe material, best pipe for French drain, high capacity French drain, French drain non-point water

Id: DuEm5RC43tk

Length: 27min 17sec (1637 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 12 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/itanimulli23]

I saw that french drain and knew it had to be Gate City. Really good content.