French Drain 101 - Everything You Need to Know!

[Music] when you cut the sod off you want to take the sod cutter and go as deep as you possibly can set it on the deepest setting for the sod cutter then you want to go ahead and just cut the pieces just 18 inches that's it you know take a 14 inch real heavy flat shovel and you could just go ahead and pick them up and put them aside it'll go back together just like a puzzle this is the best way to remove sod and then have the sod set aside in a manner to where it's really easy when the French drain system is complete go ahead and just start putting the sod together just like a puzzle that saw to go back in just the way it came out you can see we took two and a half inches of root with the turf they do have sprinklers so even in the drought they'll be able to keep this alive over the French drain system I've had people in the past ask this question before how do your drains fare during the drought season yes you do have to water where the French drain is if you don't have sprinklers in Michigan July in August is our drought season that's when you'd have to apply some water that's the prescription add water keep the sod alive keep the sod healthy and happy most of people that have us come and improve their drainage they're really proud about their yards they take really good care of their their homes in their yards so they're gonna water one way or another to keep their blue grasses looking really nice throughout the summer nobody here just lets their yard go dormant and and look like a hay field so it's it's not a problem but I've had people ask this and you know call the this email me hey I see your videos will the side actually grow over your French screen system during the drought you do have to water it through spring fall winter no issues here in Michigan we just have those couple of hot months where we don't get any rain July in August those are the two months where you do have to water periodically and you can tell you can tell when it starts to dry and it needs a little bit of water it lets you know you can see a drying out so there's some tips about how we take the sod off how we go about building our drains we don't need Inlet basins because we build them this way this is like one giant channel drain there's no better French drain period then a gravel French drain built this way the guys went ahead and they cut the sprinkler line go get the French drain and you can see the sod is in order it goes together like a puzzle we're the only ones building maintenance free french drains there's another sprinkler line they cut it go get the system in we got into the mains over here but the French drain needs to go where the French drain needs to go so it's no big deal I'm gonna go pick up a couple hundred foot rolls of it and we'll be fine it goes together like adult Legos and by the way it's included in our price we're a full-service installation company so you can see just how methodical everything is done the sod has been cut off all of its route cut really thick the guys go ahead and take a shovel cut it in manageable sections they just lean it up against the fence we're the only ones building maintenance free french drains that are fully contained there lasts forever once you cut the sod off and you want the sod cutter to be set at the deepest notch so you have a nice thick piece of turf and all its route then you go ahead and you can start digging I know that homeowners do a lot of hand dig for DIY it's super easy to do handing in the spring that's when the soil saturated and clay just cuts like butter so I really recommend a hand dig in the spring once you have your trench then you have to go ahead and now line it with your nonwoven geotextile filter fabric notice how we take the fabric pins and we pin the fabric back that's so when you dump the stone in with your wheelbarrow it doesn't pull the fabric down to the bottom of the trench because that that is exactly what will happen so you go ahead and take your fabric staples you know just punch them right through the guys got a technique where they just kind of do a quick strike and they go right through the 4-ounce especially the 8-ounce is a little heavier so you're gonna have to work at that so this is how you prep your trench now remember how we do things we're gonna put the French drain pipe at the bottom that means it goes in before the stone and if you have a sprinkler system you want your French drain pipe underneath the sprinkler lines so when you pull it you want to pull it under all your sprinkler lines if you did a hand dig you probably don't have to do any repair and again if you do a hand dig in the spring you're gonna have to work in the mud but I'm telling you clay cuts like butter all right your next step you want to pick a really good yard drain pipe and there's only one purpose-built yard drain pipe out there and it happens to be the high-octane it is the blue pipe it has more Inlet than any other pipe in the world and it's the strongest single wall corrugated pipe in the world high octane was purpose-built just for yard drains and French drains so you want to make sure that you use the very best pipe out there after you've spent all that time digging out all that clay you want to make sure that you benefit from all that sweat equity that you put into your yard drain projects so we want to use the our drain pipe that Baughman tile company makes the high octane we want to put that at the bottom now remember this is stronger than PVC this is stronger than PVC pipe this is stronger than Scott 40 PVC pipe and I'm gonna prove it I'll prove it time and time again just subscribe to this channel and I will show you dozens of reasons why this pipe is stronger than PVC schedule 40 so that will be in later videos but as far as for your yard drain make sure you use the right pipe a pipe that's easy to work with user-friendly tons of flexibility you don't have to wait for glue to dry you literally just snap all the fittings together you use a tile tape to make sure that in the freeze and thaw on the north if the ground moves and shifts around new construction in the south that nothing comes apart alright so now I want to show you how you go ahead and install the high octane because you want to put this right on the fabric you want this to be laying right on the fabric you're going to have a better yard drain if you have more of the high-octane in the trench so the guys are taking the fabric pins and they're going ahead and stapling the fabric back so that we can get all the high-octane in now this particular drain had five pipes in it and all you have to do is just run them and put an end plug in the end you can see where they just end and there's like an end plug there that's it so this you don't want stone to fill the pipe but what happens with high octane because it has 17 and a quarter square inches of Inlet per linear foot is the water just goes right through the top pipes into the bottom pipes and you only need to connect one pipe one of the bottom pipes to the storm drain or run it as you're discharged to whatever your system requires but that's how you use this pipe this pipe is unique this pipe is indestructible and then you can just go ahead and put some stone over top alright so the end plugs that go in the bomb in high octane that's what they look like everybody always says how do you start out the drainage system right there you just plug it that's it internal end plug then you can take your fabric pins or staples and just staple them down you can see that they went under the sprinkler lines right there you can see how the sides cut off and laid neatly to the one side the right side of this trench is gonna be super easy to put back together so this has now been prepped and ready for stone that would be the next step you got your pipe at the bottom why do you want your pipe on the bottom so that you drain all the water out of your system when people tell you Oh put 3/4 inches of stone down then put down your yard drain pipe that's bad information and I'll tell you why because you're not gonna get the water that's laying in that stone that's 3 inches underneath the our drain pipe you're not gonna get that out of the trench so the trees and shrubs in the yard and landscape they sniff that water out and the roots fill your yard drain and now it has an expiration date so that's why you want your pipe on the bottom of the trench and that's how you start your yard drain pipe now you can put bricks blocks I don't care what on this pipe to keep it down when you're putting in the stone that's definitely something that you have to be careful you'll go to dump the stone in and it'll push the pipe aside and the stone will go up underneath the pipe and you don't want that so I have somebody stand on the pipe put cinder blocks on the pipe whatever you want I get this question asked all the time here we have this monster Inlet look at the monster inlets on this yard drainpipe that Baughman tile company built it's called the high octane this pipe moves water faster than any other pipe in the world and it's a strongest single wall pipe in the world now I get asked all the time what stone II used with this pipe so I like to use a really big stone the reason why you put big stone with this the bigger stones the bigger the voids because you want to feed this pipe you want to be able to move that water as fast as you can if you evacuate the water quicker then you get less soil saturation to your yard and keep in mind this French drain system it works believe it or not 24/7 365 days out of the year doesn't take a minute off that's what's cool about a French drain system people always ask me what would you recommend a yard drain or a French drain well that depends a yard drain just catches surface water in yard drain catch basins that's all it does French drain well that's a different story it's pulling water from the subsurface it is pulling water 365 days out of the year from your soil in your yard so that your dog and your children and you can enjoy this yard you're not running around in that sloppy mess if you're watching this you need a French drain I'm sure if you're muddy soft squishy yard drain all that's gonna do is get rid of those puddles that's this going to take standing water away that is it but use big stone nice inch and a half round rock and make sure it's round rock search long and hard for a round rock if you can't find any round rock well then inch and a half in crushed but make sure it's screened no fines in it I want to show you guys what a blind Inlet looks like it now this is a traditional blind inlet guys so we have the high-octane running two parallel pipes the Baughman high-octane the royal blue giant windows now you don't have to run pipe up into a pothole in the yard if you have a big enough system and you can move all the water you just have to dig out some of that poor percolating soil get into that pothole and just fill that with stone the water will run through the stone into the pipes and out through your discharge that's a traditional blind inlet we've of course made some changes you know on top of the stone will actually wrap this stone and then we'll put a plastic grate so that you can blow the leaves off you know there it's actually kind of known as a trash rack that way you're not filling a stone full of garbage and this blind inlet that'll have stone this will be the same stone as the stone we're going to put in the French drain keep that stone free of as much debris as possible so that your flow rate stays up for years and years to come we get a lot of questions about blind inlets too is really muddy we've had this all night and all day rain this past weekend was was the wet one so this grass will look great after a couple more rains just from walking it in stomping and ants a bit muddy so there's a blind Inlet alright so bang look everybody's asking how we're doing this I still want our nonwoven geotextile double punched fabric filtering contaminants so the water is gonna go right through this yes it's going to go through this extremely fast extremely quick this takes bulk water that's why we do that for bulk water there's another blind Inlet there's gonna be another one over here this sides been all pieced together got a blind Inlet you can see how the grass just goes together like a puzzle the guys that kept their group beside organized and this works amazing when this tree drops its leaves you have to just hit it with a leaf blower and that's it done there's not dead worms you know this nasty garbage you haven't use your shop vac to suck all that crap out I mean it's look I've been in this I've been in the field for three decades and I'm telling you I don't have it at my house I wouldn't deal with it it's nasty he's blowing inlets are the way to go now we do some systems on the lake when water comes over to seawall that's a little different and I look forward to showing you that you know just stay tuned when you go to do your burrito wrap of your French drain system you want to make sure not to overlap I've seen drains where they do a heavy overlap the water flows through this filter fabric just fine the filter fabric always has a gallons per minute rate this filter fabric here is gonna move water it's gonna move 140 gallons per minute through a square foot of it so what we want to make sure is that we don't overlap sure we want to pull them together we want to keep the dirt out but we don't want to have a bunch of extra filter fabric we're just overlapping on top of one another because that is going to create a problem it actually that will slow down your drain so once in a while you're gonna have to enter the drain you're gonna have cable AT&T Comcast sprinklers - you got a make way for them and there's there's just really no getting around that you know you have to you have to work with that for more tips tricks subscribe question that we have asked all the time and it's a good question this pipe has all these holes in it how does it hold water and I get that I could see where that would be a problem but we're not trying to move water in a pipe say you know across your floor Joyce's because it's indoor plumbing that's different you need a solid pipe for that no this is different so your yard raid pipe in a French drain it's surrounded by stone so the pipe itself is the greatest void in the French drain system so you want a pipe that's gonna take in water from 360 degrees all all around sides top bottom you want it to take and water from everywhere and that is the giant void now we like to put two three four pipes in a trench because we're creating more void we're gonna move more water so I gave a brief explanation on how this works in a video and I'm gonna put it on the end for a bonus footage our subscribers are crazy intelligent I just love it you guys ask the best questions and they're legit so here's one that I get asked a lot someone explained it people are always saying they're always saying how does the water move in the pipe when there's all these holes because the thought behind it is does the water just fall out as easy as it goes in so I get that that's legit guys trying to figure out how this pipe works don't don't screw yourself into the ground man it's this simple we wanted these big outlets for two reasons one the water goes right into this pipe and this pipe acts as a giant void just like we go up in size on aggregate the larger the aggregate the bigger the voids say you don't have big aggregate available to you say you get stuck using small stone well then it's even more important that you put two pipes in because you create the voids this is a giant void two four inch pipes that is a monster void in your system and I'm gonna teach you some more stuff here in this video real quick because the guys want to start putting stone in now over here we're gonna have a tea and the discharge is going to go to the storm drain with these big inlets in the high-octane the water collected in this pipe just passes through into this pipe now we're going to put a tee here but that's how we do it people always say hey what's going on here you're not connecting these two pipes well it's a big void it's like having monster aggregate you'd have to have 12 inch or 18 inch you know Brown rock to create the kind of voids we're creating so that is what we do here now see how big these voids are any dirt or contaminants will pass right through these voids they'll pass right through these pipes can you believe that it's awesome that's why we had Baughman tile open up the inlets on the high octane we love the yellow and it moves water you know it really does but it doesn't move dirt like the high octane does so we love it because what we're finding out is not everybody's getting good wash stone and they're cutting corners they're cutting corners because washing stone that that costs a lot of money to put stone through a wash plant so people are getting stone that's already kind of compromised it's got dirt in it even we have been getting stoned that's why I know and it costs a lot of money in diesel fuel to run a wash plant so if these guys can sell you the stone at the same price and don't have to put it through that last step they save a small fortune so here's the sprinkler poking through we've been getting a lot of questions say it's ready - now that these pipes are in we'll be able to attach that and then put the stone in and right now francisco's putting a solid this is for the gutters all the downspouts are ran to the solid and you always want you always want your solid pipe on top your perforated pipe down below water water runs downhill the only kind of water that comes up is flood water so that's why you're perfect to be at the bottom so remember this is a big void water just passes right through it because of these monster inlets also the dirt in the stone that you buy I love when our systems run on their very first hard rain the reason why I love that because the water just comes out so muddy so dirty and then as a system ages the water starts coming out like it's from a mountain stream it's clearest can be so that's why these monster inlets for yard drains are a must now you couldn't use these monster inlets on the farm because you don't have any aggregate they don't build them with stone and the other thing when you open up a pipe with this larger Inlet and you use a big machine like a tile plow to put it in you're gonna probably rip that pipe honestly this plates so strong you probably could do it but Baughman tile wants me to tell you farmers do not use high octane with your tile plows use the 8 slot yellow premium and again guys this pipe on top is for downspout water and we just want to run it as far away as we can we want to get it as close to the storm drain as we can and there we go it's that simple so this pop-up will have the material fabric the stone will come up to here and then we'll do the material fabric we'll cut it out and then we'll put the sod right up to it so shingle gravel and leaves that come off the roof they just end up in the grass and the lawnmower will just mulch that won't be an issue you'll never even see it you'll never even know it's there you

Channel: FRENCH DRAIN MAN

Views: 135,446

Rating: 4.74966 out of 5

Keywords: french drain, french drain pipe, french drain installation, french drain system, what is a french drain, french drain cost, french drain basement, how to install french drain, diy french drain, french drain in yard, french drain home depot, french drains around house, pipeless french drain, standing water in yard, water pooling in yard, how does french drain work, lowes french drain, french drain depth, french drain design, corrugated pipe, corrugated drain pipe, baughman

Id: VFYj7sbmXGg

Length: 23min 55sec (1435 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 12 2020