French Drains (house, buy, maintenance)

[Txgal33]

Anybody have one put in and if so are you happy with the drainage after the fact? If so who did you use?? We are needing one to run from the middle of our backyard out the the street.

[RCH99]

The materials for a french drain are cheap. The labor to have them properly installed such that they actually work correctly is pretty expensive. If the center of your backyard is holding water, you might be better off having a landscaper rework the grade and correct your swales. That handwork and new sod would be considerably less expensive than running 75-100 foot of drain pipe.

[Txgal33]

Originally Posted by RCH99

The materials for a french drain are cheap. The labor to have them properly installed such that they actually work correctly is pretty expensive. If the center of your backyard is holding water, you might be better off having a landscaper rework the grade and correct your swales. That handwork and new sod would be considerably less expensive than running 75-100 foot of drain pipe.

It actually holds water on the left hand side and now that we have a swing set up it sits in the middle because the sun blocks that area. Kinda hard to grade the yard with a mondo swingset in its way.
I will let hubby know your thoughts.

Thanx

[elnina]

Please check the DIY project here: How To Build a French Drain : How-To : DIY Network it doesn't look so complicated or expensive.
And the video: Video: French Drains
You can do it!

[CoderGeek]

The key to french drains is getting the angles just right. Triple check that the pipe slopes downward towards where you want the water to go to. I've seen too many people just throw pipes in the ground flat and wonder why they don't work.

Also, buy good pipe - don't get the cheap crap (get the pipe with thicker walls). Also, do use the fabric. Sure, french drains do need to be ripped up and re-installed every few decades, but hopefully that's 50-60 years rather than 20-30 years.

As a tip, avoid having too many joints. French drains with longer pipe segments seem to not need as much maintenance in terms of digging crap out, but this is just my own anecdotal experience.

I'm not sure if they sell them down here, but there are ends you can buy for PVC piping that looks like a small plastic grate with vertical slots (don't put them horizontally, that'll just capture crap rather than let it flow out). I recommend putting these at the end of your drains to 1) prevent stuff from crawling up the pipe and dieing (which does happen!) and 2) keep most of the debris out of the pipe. Despite this, I still recommend an annual cleaning, but it should be just 15 minutes of going in there and digging out dark mush if you do things right .

My experience is from up north, so maybe the stuff about creatures crawling up and dieing may not be as applicable.

[tdhg566]

Originally Posted by CoderGeek

...I'm not sure if they sell them down here, but there are ends you can buy for PVC piping that looks like a small plastic grate with vertical slots (don't put them horizontally, that'll just capture crap rather than let it flow out). I recommend putting these at the end of your drains to 1) prevent stuff from crawling up the pipe and dieing (which does happen!) and 2) keep most of the debris out of the pipe. Despite this, I still recommend an annual cleaning, but it should be just 15 minutes of going in there and digging out dark mush if you do things right . ...

yes, you can get the slotted end caps at any box store in the section where they sell drain materials

[tdhg566]

Originally Posted by Txgal33

It actually holds water on the left hand side and now that we have a swing set up it sits in the middle because the sun blocks that area. Kinda hard to grade the yard with a mondo swingset in its way.
I will let hubby know your thoughts.

Thanx

Curious. Did you have the water problem before you put up the swingset, OR has something else happened that is causing the pooling? And if you had the problem before, and lived with it, what's the motivation for fixing it now? I.e., it's important to fix the root source of the problem, e.g. has some guttering been removed that otherwise would direct water somewhere else, or has a fence been installed that changed the natural flow of the water?

[Txgal33]

Originally Posted by elnina

Please check the DIY project here: How To Build a French Drain : How-To : DIY Network it doesn't look so complicated or expensive.
And the video: Video: French Drains
You can do it!

I am sure we could do it but at what expense to our marriage!

[Txgal33]

Originally Posted by tdhg566

Curious. Did you have the water problem before you put up the swingset, OR has something else happened that is causing the pooling? And if you had the problem before, and lived with it, what's the motivation for fixing it now? I.e., it's important to fix the root source of the problem, e.g. has some guttering been removed that otherwise would direct water somewhere else, or has a fence been installed that changed the natural flow of the water?

Moved in back in July. The neighbors have a pool so drainage on that side of the backyard sucks. I notice a lot of the homes with pools around here have terrible drainage in their own yards. Builder had come and looked at our backyard once but it was fairly dry then. We did have issues closer to the house as well but we installed gutters all the way around the back of the home and we extended our patio so that it would not pool up right there. Got tired of waiting on the builder. Had issues with drainage in our last home as well. Builders do not seem to jump at fixing that problem. When we put the set up we thought we had placed it far enough over from the bad area but since the set went up the bad area seems to have grown or maybe we just have gotten a lot more rain than before. We want the kids to be able to play out there and not be in mud and mosquitos.

[elnina]

Originally Posted by Txgal33

I am sure we could do it but at what expense to our marriage!

Hahaha... team work?? no?? hmmmmm...