French Drains - do they work?
Jeff1502
I am getting a lot of basement flooding during heavy rains. I have a club
cellar so I can not see behind the paneling. Just had landscaping done recently
around the foundation, but rain still came in.
Window well below ground seems ok, though there is a drain there. Might try to
cover that to see what happens.
Any comments on installing french drains? Can a landscaper do the work?
Thanks,
Jeff
AnneoAnne
In article <19971124002...@ladder02.news.aol.com>,
jeff...@aol.com (Jeff1502) wrote:
Jeff,
I had a French drain dug at the back of my house a few years ago and it
has worked just fine. My house is on a hill and I had water coming in
under the house. There is a hose connection at the end of the drain that
takes the water on down the hill. The person that made the drain was a
contractor. If you are in the Triangle area (NC), I will give you his
name.
--
Do random acts of kindness and senseless acts of beauty !!
Mark Underwood
Jeff1502 wrote:
>
> I am getting a lot of basement flooding during heavy rains. I have a club
> cellar so I can not see behind the paneling. Just had landscaping done recently
> around the foundation, but rain still came in.
>
> Window well below ground seems ok, though there is a drain there. Might try to
> cover that to see what happens.
>
> Any comments on installing french drains? Can a landscaper do the work?
>
> Thanks,
> Jeff
Putting a drain in will get rid of the surface water (down to the depth
of the trench you dig) which may solve the problem. (Ideally, the full
height of the wall should be drained). To put in a proper drain, dig
the trench, line it with filter fabric, put in a shallow layer of 1 1/2
inch rock, put a drain pipe with the holes facing up (yes, up, you are
DRAINING the trench, you don't want the water to get out of the pipe)
close to the bottom of the trench, fill up the trench with the rest of
the rock.
Mark
Fred
On 24 Nov 1997 00:28:31 GMT, jeff...@aol.com (Jeff1502) wrote:
>I am getting a lot of basement flooding during heavy rains. I have a club
>cellar so I can not see behind the paneling. Just had landscaping done recently
>around the foundation, but rain still came in.
>
>Window well below ground seems ok, though there is a drain there. Might try to
>cover that to see what happens.
>
>Any comments on installing french drains? Can a landscaper do the work?
>
>Thanks,
>Jeff
The only trick is to make sure the drain has an exit downhill . One of
my neighbors had a french drain that ran 10 feet away from the house
and then went uphill ! to the surface . Once we dug a little farther
downhill , the water just flowed out ! Must have had 100 gals trapped
in there .
danh...@millcomm.com
In <19971124002...@ladder02.news.aol.com>, jeff...@aol.com (Jeff1502) writes:
>I am getting a lot of basement flooding during heavy rains. I have a club
>cellar so I can not see behind the paneling. Just had landscaping done recently
>around the foundation, but rain still came in.
>
>Window well below ground seems ok, though there is a drain there. Might try to
>cover that to see what happens.
>
>Any comments on installing french drains? Can a landscaper do the work?
The drain tile must be installed BELOW the level of the floor to do any
good, and the tile must drain somewhere -- either into a sump pump pit, to
a low corner of the lot, or (less reliable) to a dry well. (The problem
with the dry well is that if you have a high water problem under the
house, it's very likely that your "dry well" won't be dry.)
Note that most localities do not permit you to tie a tile line into the
sanitary sewers (or dump a sump pump into the sanitary sewers), but some
may allow a connection to a storm sewer system.
Dan Hicks
Hey!! My advice is free -- take it for what it's worth!
http://www.millcomm.com/~danhicks
Tim R. Baker
On 24 Nov 1997 00:28:31 GMT, jeff...@aol.com (Jeff1502) wrote:
>I am getting a lot of basement flooding during heavy rains. I have a club
>cellar so I can not see behind the paneling. Just had landscaping done recently
>around the foundation, but rain still came in.
>
>Window well below ground seems ok, though there is a drain there. Might try to
>cover that to see what happens.
>
>Any comments on installing french drains? Can a landscaper do the work?
>
>Thanks,
>Jeff
Jeff,
Every house that we build includes a very elaborate french drainage
system. We install a 12" concrete footer. On either side of this
footer we install two levels of 4" perforated PVC piping. We place
about 2-4 inches of 2b limestone gravel under the first level and the
inside and outside bottom levels are connected every 8-10 feet through
the footer. The outside top level is isolated from the bottom level.
The inside top level is also isolated and is connected to a roof vent
and serves as a radon vent. After the block foundation is laid, both
sides of the walls are painted with a waterproof masonry coating such
as Thoro-seal. The ouside is the covered with trowel-on tar
foundation coat. Any basement window wells have a PCV drain installed
that connects to the outer top level of drainage pipe. The entire
foundation is then backfilled with 2b limestone to within about 18
inches of the finish grade. All of the downspouts are also connected
to a seperate drain system and diverted well away from the foundation.
Open downspouts running onto splashblocks are a bad idea.
This system is a bit expensive. It add aroud $1500-5000 to the price
of our package. But, it is a small price to pay for a dry basement.
We have never had a complaint since we adopted this system about 4
years ago and have built 28 house using it. I wish I could say the
same for houses built without it.
As you are about to find out, $1500-5000 is a small price to pay to
have it done correctly the first time. The only way to fix the
problem is to dig out the foundation to the bottom of the footers.
Anything less will probably still leak water. Install sufficient
drain piping and backfill with gravel. This will work, but it is not
a cheap solution.
Hope it helps, Tim.
Lgthous
Tim --
Based on your information on french drains, you seem to have a bit of
experience in this area.
My new home in NJ gets water in the basement during very heavy rains. The
builder installed a single level french drain at the footer. Both the inside
and outside pipes drain into my sump well. Unfortunately if the rain is very
heavy my sump pump cannot keep up. Worse, if there is a power failure, the sump
pump doesn't work at all.
Unfortunately, since the footers are well below the grade level anywhere on my
property, the footer drains cannot drain anywhere except the sump well.
Any suggestions on what I can do to help alleviate the problem? Would it make
sense to insall another outside drain pipe about 1 foot above the basement
floor which can drain to a low spot on my property?
Thanks for the advice.
danh...@millcomm.com
Probably you'd do better to tend to the slope around the house, so that
water drains away from the house. If that doesn't do it then the higher
level drain is worth a shot.
Jim Toth
Lgthous <lgt...@aol.com> wrote in article
<19971129143...@ladder02.news.aol.com>...
> Tim --
>
> Based on your information on french drains, you seem to have a bit of
> experience in this area.
>
> My new home in NJ gets water in the basement during very heavy rains. The
> builder installed a single level french drain at the footer. Both the
inside
> and outside pipes drain into my sump well. Unfortunately if the rain is
very
> heavy my sump pump cannot keep up. Worse, if there is a power failure,
the sump
> pump doesn't work at all.
>
> Unfortunately, since the footers are well below the grade level anywhere
on my
> property, the footer drains cannot drain anywhere except the sump well.
>
> Any suggestions on what I can do to help alleviate the problem? Would it
make
> sense to insall another outside drain pipe about 1 foot above the
basement
> floor which can drain to a low spot on my property?
>
> Thanks for the advice.
>
>
>
The best advice I have is to divert the surface water away from your
house. Such as gutter drains extending far from the house, Clean the
gutters so that they do not overflow, and landscape to allow surface water
to run away from the house.
If this does not work, get a new pump that moves more volume.