How To Build a French Drain That Lasts FOREVER

welcome to the French drain man Channel we're gonna go over some do's and don'ts for French drains I'm going to show you some of our competitors systems that failed and we had to replace them and I'll show you how to build a French drain that will last forever let's begin okay here's a failed French drain that we did not install none of our systems fail they a stone gravel French drain will last forever a French drain that's installed correctly will last forever simply put what happened here is they didn't use a geotextile fabric to separate the stone from the subsoil so you can see the stone and subsoil migrated into one another you can see that pipe is just plugged the inside that pipe is not plugged it's plugged externally the water can't get through all the clay and stone mixed since they didn't use a filter fabric you need to use a non woven geotextile filter fabric we'll get into that in a little bit here so there again you can see that that is a real shallow pipe we just cut the sod off and the pipe was pushed up to the surface the frost will do that in Michigan and any place in the north where you have a real winner here's another failed system we did not install this I want to keep emphasizing that I'm showing you pictures of failure these are things that we run into out in the field this pipe was you know just the pipe that we abandoned because we went in put a system in that would last forever this pipe has a filter fabric on it we don't endorse that for a French drain a yard drain I'll go over that in detail you can see they used a larger stone aggregate which I like but they didn't use a geotextile nonwoven fabric so the stone migrated in the subsoil to subsoil migrated in the stone and you can't get water through that it's plugged so the pipe wasn't plugged the pipe you know you can see some dirt that's pushed in it from the back hole or excavator but the pipe was not plugged you just couldn't get water to the pipe that's the problem it's because of how they installed it so here's a another we see this a lot they this is a corrugated drain pipe and they wrapped it with drainage fabric you don't want to do this either this is another bad idea and it just results in failure the these systems only work if you can get the water to the pipe and the way we build them with so much stone the water will move through the gravel this was another failed pipe and it just went to a pop-up and then the water was supposed to define gravity and go up into the storm drain catch basin which that don't work so we core drilled here and then we ditched out a really big trench and I'll show you how we go about building our french drain systems okay we use an excavator or backhoe and you can see the gentlemen down in the trench we're ditching out a really nice French drain trench here we're taking all that dirt out notice how there's not piles of dirt there's not piles of dirt anywhere on this jobsite as soon as the shovel gets a scoop of the heavy soil he's putting it in a mini loader and we're getting it off site here's another example you can see we have a spotter in the trench he's looking for sprinkler pipes and he's also taking topo readings with a laser level too he's got a transit on site on a tripod and he's communicating with the operator now look how clean that is we're taking all the dirt we're scooping it out of this trench we're putting it in this mini loader and we're carrying it out to the front to dump trucks now compare these other methods they bring in a trencher and look at the damage they do look at the damage to that turf now not only most trenchers are only going to make a six-inch groove that's not ditching a job you need to ditch a job for a good French train I do know that they make big commercial trenchers that will go wider than six inches I'm well aware however I want to restore the homeowners yard I don't want to destroy it I want to be as I want to go in and be as non-invasive as possible that's that's the goal here so not only does a trench or cut through sprinkler lines the end you got to deal with that later and disturb your turf and it takes a while to men turf so it's it's an eyesore for a few months so here's a trencher versus an excavator you got a nice deep groove nice clean job we put the plywood down so we don't disturb the turf at all so we get the machinery in and out of there all our machines are on tracks and not rubber tires that's important okay so a lot of people ask what's the difference between a Curtin French drain and a perimeter French drain and these pictures here all will help you out a lot we were able to get these pictures on the leaves finally fell off the trees it's late season right now and that's a perimeter French drain because it follows the defense the property line now a Curtin French drain would be around the house so it'd be up tight to the house and go around the house that's a Curtin French drain so the way you build them is the same it's just when people refer to a curtain drain they're referring to going around the building when they're referring to a perimeter French drain they're referring to going around the property so a perimeter French drain will catch all your neighbor's water that's coming into your property which is a problem for a lot of people this this makes for happier neighbors right here just put in a French drain and then also all your own water that runs to the back a lot and we take it either to a waterway or storm catch basin whatever there is will get the water out of there another great shot of just how neat and clean you don't see a big pile of dirt anywhere we take all the dirt out you don't want to put any of the dirt back in that's that's key here you don't want to put any of the dirt back in you want to put all stone in now you can hardly see it but here's the turf we cut the turf off with two and a half inches of root and just laid it to the side that'll go back in over the system I'll show you that later but look at a trenching method look at how much damage that's doing what a mess it's making and then instead of taking away all the dirt they're just going to put in a little bit of stone over a pipe and push that dirt over top of it now if you have poor percolating soil putting that same soil back in is just gonna plug the system now the homeowner will think that it works initially because there's so much air look at all the air pockets and that dirts freshly turned up like that it'll take a while before it's compacted so the contractor could actually make a way we call it a cash grab when they come in and they build systems like this it's unfortunate to now end up having to replace these systems all the time but once this soil settles and it becomes compacted and there's no more air pockets for the water to find its way to the little bit of stone they do put in these things quit working so we put a big as you can tell us a real big Channel real big trench here's another example of how neat and clean we are you don't see a big dirt pile to the left or to the right here's the sod you can barely see it laying over the sod nice blue grass here in Michigan that's where we are located now that's a non woven geotextile fabric that's what you want to use that's a soil separator it's like a felt water runs right through it it separates the stone from the subsoil so you get that mix that I showed you you know real quick I'll just go back to the opening shot they didn't use a nonwoven geotextile fabric to burrito wrap the stone and pipe as one so that's how you end up with failure and when you go ahead and use a pipe with a filter filter wrap on it well now you're not wrapping the stone so the stone migrates in the subsoil the subsoil migrates into stone and the system quits so what good is it it's not helping if you have a pipe that's not plugged if you can't get the water to it the system's still not gonna work so I understand the theory behind it and I see how some people get tricked by it but but don't you want to wrap the entire system the stone and pipe is one now when going under sidewalks or driveways you got a bore and you got to use schedule 40 that's what you want to do when you're going under concrete so here you can see we did a bore and we're putting up a couple of couplings together so that the corrugated pipe will snap right on the schedule 40 here's another one showing the guys working on the connection points of the schedule 40 that's underneath the sidewalk this is six inch how do you get six inch under a 4-inch slab of concrete when you don't have very much fall to the street without leaving a belly in this big pocket of water well go to a why some six to four reducers and you go two to four inch pipes that's how you get a six inch pipe under a sidewalk without leaving a belly and making a mess and having a system that works properly now six inch pipes usually come in place when you have two hundred feet or more upstream so keep that in mind you're not just a generic number to work with there's so much involved as far as the math of the area of the yard rooftops all that is figured in everything that we design okay so I'm not bashing Home Depot I love the place you know I'm like any guy I'm a junkie for tools I love you know I love the place but there there's a there's a place for this kind of pipe and there's a type of soil for this kind of pipe and it fits in the agricultural community on certain farms just fine I don't like this pipe I don't use it for my systems I'll show you what I use look how big those inlets are we use a large aggregate not a pea stone we use a really large aggregate so we can get away with a big opening like that you can fit a u.s. quarter in that again you know this is what you get the big-box stores the inlet that we have in our pipe we are going to evacuate water so fast that's what people want nobody's got any patience anymore I understand that that's fine well build you a system that screams well well build you a system that moves water another commonly asked question my sprinkler system how did how do you deal with that well we go under it we go under all the sprinkler lines and you can see how we were very careful we actually cut this sprinkler line and then put in couplers you can't see the connections because they're on the other side of the the non woven geotextile filter fabric all right so now we got our nonwoven geotextile filter fabric and we got our pipe at the bottom of the trench yes we do put our pipe at the bottom of the trench I know that some people instruct you to put a few inches underneath this the the pipe for a backyard drainage system in Michigan you don't want to do that as long as you're using a Geo textile nonwoven filter fabric where the water just runs through it you're separating the soil from your system you can let your pipe right on the filter fabric the non woven geotextile filter fabric you want to lay that pipe right on it that way the frost can't heave this pipe to the surface here's a bigger system you can see there's two four inch corrugated pipes in that system at the bottom you can see the nonwoven geotextile filter fabric going back to these failed systems they didn't wrap the stone with the pipe they just put a wrap around the pipe that's why it failed these always fail that's how you want to do it rap your stone and your pipe as one this black nonwoven geotextile filter fabric that's what you want to do this is a backyard where the Swale went down the center of it so water would always lay in here you could always tell when somebody's had a water problem for years that this was a situation where they had water problem for the past decade and finally found us and we helped them out with it how you can tell we have beautiful bluegrass here in Michigan so when you see grass like that that means there's low oxygen that means saturated soils and it chokes out the blue grasses and these undesired grasses can actually grow in those conditions and that's what you end up with so when we finish the system they went ahead and hired a company to come in and cut out and remove all that turf and put in some new blue grass here's a great shot showing you just how thick the sod is that we cut out we take two and a half inches of roots you can see those slabs of turf nice blue grass you can see the large aggregate that we're pouring into our French drain system this one is running out to the street this one did go under the walk nice and clean we take the nonwoven fabric you can see a staple a staple we staple it done it's wrapped it's a burrito wrap so what we call it in the industry the building industry so the stone and pipe is wrapped as one there's one more piece of sod that goes in these pieces have already been set in place so tell me would you rather have this or would you rather well this this system here's 18 inches everything's Specht out to handle the task at hand so people always ask how wide and how deep they all vary it depends on the application so here you see a system is pretty wide 18 inch wide and I know this this system happened to go this particular one went 24 inches deep okay so what is what the duct tape I'm digging up these systems and having to replace them I'm gonna help you guys out with that show you the right tape you want to use a PVC tape it's known as a tile tape it's made it's a it's PVC and it's super super stretchy super sticky look at that look at that you can see it's watertight you can see how just forms right to the shape of the pipe yeah I mean the manufacturer says this material is going to end up lasting two to five hundred years so this is don't use duct tape don't use silicone use tile tape

Channel: FRENCH DRAIN MAN

Views: 698,753

Keywords: Yard Drainage, Yard Drainage Contractor, how to install a french drain, perforated drainage pipe, how to build a french drain, french drains, french drain pipe, what is a french drain, french drain cost, yard drainage, french drain system, french drain diy, french drain design, french drain installation, curtain drain, perforated drain tile, french drain depth, drainage trench, french drain cover, yard drain, french drain basement, yard drains, yard water solutions

Id: KiehdvVTu-8

Length: 16min 50sec (1010 seconds)

Published: Sat Feb 23 2019