RE: French Drains . . . and other stuff

[firefighterjake]

Gotta be serious here for a minute . . . thanks guys. Your advice on this topic is truly appreciated and is quite reassuring as I am the type to always obsess over things and imagine the worse happening. I started to think that digging down so close to the pad would lead to a catastrophic failure and in my mind pictured my garage collapsing in middle of the night after a heavy rain storm.

This is why I love this site so much . . . it's about woodstoves and heating with wood . . . but it really is about a community of folks getting together on line to offer up their experienced advice on a wide range of topics. It's almost as if we're gathering around the old woodstove at the general store and chewing the proverbial fat.

 

[firefighterjake]

Here are some pics . . . if I can remember how to upload photos to this site.

 

[firefighterjake]

Pic 1: View of my WRX parked in the garage . . . and view of a spade . . . and a really, really big rock that I could only move by hitching a tow strap to it and towing it with my ATV. Also a pic showing the trench I've dug in the alcove between the house, mudroom and garage and the termination point.

Pic 2: View of the garage on the alcove side. As you can see, even with the gravel this area gets quite wet . . . it doesn't help that snow from half of the garage roof and mudroom drops right here . . . or that the sun never reaches this area. Incidentally, the future plan is to replace the cedar shingles with something a little more durable.

Pic 3: I'm hoping to start off this French drain fairly close to the surface along the wall of the mudroom and then slope it down to where it will take a 90 degree turn and then a straight shot out to a low spot in the front lawn.

Pic 4: View of my "side" of the garage. I have little to no water penetration here (other than the crappy garage doors which will be changed out when we re-do the siding and windows -- this year we did the roof) . . . so I dug down 3 or 4 inches and sloped the gravel towards the sides where the French drains will be. I then filled this with rock and a bit of gravel on top. Before the gravel driveway was pretty much even with the garage pad . . .now there is a 1/4 to 1/2 inch lip. Also there is a view of the garage catbox . . . which I need to de-poo.

Pic 5: Did the same thing for my wife's "side" of the garage.

Pic 6: View of the garage side. This is where I had the most visible spalling damage inside. Since I didn't want to dig too far down along this 36 foot run I opted to run out to about half of the garage and then go out at a 45 degree angle towards a low spot in the side/back lawn. I also plan to run a drain from the halfway point in the garage to the back. The orange bucket in the picture is what I used to mix up small batches of patching cement. The propane cylinder partly in the picture is used for domestic hot water -- not for heating. If you look carefully you will see a few of my stacks of wood which are seasoning . . . along with some pallets used for stacking.

Pic 7: A view of the side showing the 45 degree angle. Interestingly enough I noticed that after going out about 6 or 7 feet I made a transition from gravel to sand.

Pic 8: View from the back of the garage looking back. Why is there a rain gutter in the picture you may ask yourself? What is FirefighterJake up to? Originally I was using the rain gutter to give me an idea of whether or not I was sloping the trench down. When I get ready to lay the pipe I plan to either use a 4 foot level or string level to better gauge the slope.

Pic 9: View of the side showing off my Nissan Titan . . . and a propane cylinder for my BBQ grill which I was going to fill this past weekend and forgot to do so.

Pic 10: Abigail Adams sleeping in a paper bag. Abby hails from Houston originally and was one of two kittens slated to be euthanized before my wife saw them on line and adopted them.

 

[Doc C]

Pic 1: View of my WRX parked in the garage . . . and view of a spade . . . and a really, really big rock that I could only move by hitching a tow strap to it and towing it with my ATV. Also a pic showing the trench I've dug in the alcove between the house, mudroom and garage and the termination point.

Pic 2: View of the garage on the alcove side. As you can see, even with the gravel this area gets quite wet . . . it doesn't help that snow from half of the garage roof and mudroom drops right here . . . or that the sun never reaches this area. Incidentally, the future plan is to replace the cedar shingles with something a little more durable.

Pic 3: I'm hoping to start off this French drain fairly close to the surface along the wall of the mudroom and then slope it down to where it will take a 90 degree turn and then a straight shot out to a low spot in the front lawn.

Pic 4: View of my "side" of the garage. I have little to no water penetration here (other than the crappy garage doors which will be changed out when we re-do the siding and windows -- this year we did the roof) . . . so I dug down 3 or 4 inches and sloped the gravel towards the sides where the French drains will be. I then filled this with rock and a bit of gravel on top. Before the gravel driveway was pretty much even with the garage pad . . .now there is a 1/4 to 1/2 inch lip. Also there is a view of the garage catbox . . . which I need to de-poo.

Pic 5: Did the same thing for my wife's "side" of the garage.

Pic 6: View of the garage side. This is where I had the most visible spalling damage inside. Since I didn't want to dig too far down along this 36 foot run I opted to run out to about half of the garage and then go out at a 45 degree angle towards a low spot in the side/back lawn. I also plan to run a drain from the halfway point in the garage to the back. The orange bucket in the picture is what I used to mix up small batches of patching cement. The propane cylinder partly in the picture is used for domestic hot water -- not for heating. If you look carefully you will see a few of my stacks of wood which are seasoning . . . along with some pallets used for stacking.

Pic 7: A view of the side showing the 45 degree angle. Interestingly enough I noticed that after going out about 6 or 7 feet I made a transition from gravel to sand.

Pic 8: View from the back of the garage looking back. Why is there a rain gutter in the picture you may ask yourself? What is FirefighterJake up to? Originally I was using the rain gutter to give me an idea of whether or not I was sloping the trench down. When I get ready to lay the pipe I plan to either use a 4 foot level or string level to better gauge the slope.

Pic 9: View of the side showing off my Nissan Titan . . . and a propane cylinder for my BBQ grill which I was going to fill this past weekend and forgot to do so.

Pic 10: Abigail Adams sleeping in a paper bag. Abby hails from Houston originally and was one of two kittens slated to be euthanized before my wife saw them on line and adopted them.

String level is the ticket and just measure down from it as you go. Also I like to take a flat shovel and flatten out the bottom of the trench, use a hand tamper to make it hardish, then a thin layer of gravel, pipe with fabric around, fill with gravel, then slope everything away from the garage for drainage.

 

[Doc C]

But good progress so far!

 

[firefighterjake]

When you say "gravel" do you mean gravel or rock? Here in Maine gravel consists of sand, small and large rocks . . . whereas rock is . . . well . . . rock.

 

[sportbikerider78]

Nice progress by hand man! Do you realize you can rent a mini-excavator for about $350/day? If you rent on a Friday you can drop off on Monday and only pay 1 day rental. You should pick one up for this holiday weekend and knock it out...and save your back.

I realize this is not close to Bangor,,but just an example. There might be places just as cheap locally.

 

[sportbikerider78]

When you say "gravel" do you mean gravel or rock? Here in Maine gravel consists of sand, small and large rocks . . . whereas rock is . . . well . . . rock.

No sand. Only small 1"-3" rock. It must be washed so fines don't plug up your geotextile.

Up here, washed number 2 stone gets you this.

 

[firefighterjake]

Sportsbiker . . . digging was relatively easy since it was mostly gravel . . . plus there are some lines overhead and a septic line below that would have made it tricky in a spot or two if I was using mechanical means . . . plus . . . I'm cheap.

Rock was delivered yesterday . . . it wasn't washed, but relatively clean . . . we have some rain in the forecast so I'm hoping that may help . . . I may also wash the rock myself before putting it down. I may have over-estimated how many yards I needed despite using the on line calculator . . . either that or the guy gave me a lot more than 6 yards.

 

[sportbikerider78]

No sweat. Put it in the wheelbarrow and hose it off.

For my projected, I had 2 entire truckloads. Washing it myself was not an option.

Just remember...injuries are expensive. $400 goes reallllllll quick if you are going to a back specialist.

 

[firefighterjake]

Spent the afternoon slathering on asphalt coating on the two exposed side walls where I am putting the French drains . . . thought about putting some on the rear of the garage, but most of the snow comes off the sides and I do not believe water penetration is a a problem there.

This was a rather messy job . . . made the mistake of wearing one of my favorite T shirts . . . hopefully the stain stick and an extra long wash can remove the tarry mess. Me . . . I am more or less clean after using some gasoline to clean off and then showering with a bar of Lava soap.

Sadly I have to put on a second coat in another 24 to 48 hours.

 

[firefighterjake]

Bonjour mes amis (yes . . . it has been many, many, many years since my high school French class and admittedly I did not do all that well.)

Thought I should give folks an update.

After the messy tarry mess last week I waited . . . and waited . . . and waited for it to dry. To tell the truth, it still doesn't seem completely dry. It was much, much thicker than I anticipated and don't know how anyone could roll that asphalt on to the foundation as it was wicked thick.

I was going to do a second coat, but truthfully it looks like I covered the foundation pretty well and I got antsy and so I put together the plumbing (opted for the slightly better smooth walled pipe vs. coiled up ribbed pipe) and after redigging part of one trench (my angle was off) I laid the pipe, checked the angle of the dangle (at least a half inch or better drop every 4 feet) and glued it together. On one section where I tend to off load my firewood I made a transition from the perforated 4 inch pipe to a solid 3 inch Schedule 40 to hold up better with the weight.

The stone that I thought was pretty clean when it was dropped off was not . . . washing it by hand has been a slow chore, but I did get a fair price on the stone and I would rather take the time now to wash it vs. having to redig the entire thing a few years from now due to excessive silting.

So far the best method (albeit still pretty slow and labor intensive) is to throw some rock on to a half inch mesh screen on top of a pallet on a wheelbarrow. I then use the hose to wash the silt (and some smaller stone unfortunately) into the wheelbarrow. I use a small trowel to work the stone around so it's pretty clean after a minute or so of stirring the rock. As I said . . . still slow . . . but it's getting the job done.

Two sections are about half done . . . another is in place, but no stone.

Tonight a decent sized thunder bumper came through and gave me the chance to see if the system is working. Running outside in the pouring rain in a lightning storm is not the smartest thing I've done, but I'm happy to say the partially finished trenches were filling with water and a decent stream of water was pouring out the ends . . . and there was no water seen in the garage except in one spot where my roofing guy needs to come back and check and in the front where the 1970 vintage, badly fitting doors need to be replaced eventually.

 

[firefighterjake]

Update (maybe I should take some pics to go with this thread):

Finished two of the three French drains (more or less -- I want to change out an end on one of them and I'm replacing a large and very heavy stone with a new step into the garage).

One more (the longest, but not the deepest fortunately) French drain to go.

Unfortunately that thunderstorm that came through washed some of the gravel back into the trench so I have to redig some of that trench.

 

[warno]

sorry i didn't read all the replies so this may gave been asked/discussed already.

I had the same problem in my garage. The base plate of the wall was right on the poured floor. I had a single course block wall put around my most problematic wall and the water doesn't come in at all anymore. We jacked up that wall and layed the block then cut the bottom off the wall and set it back down on a new base plate tied to the block. I would have a stream of water running through my garage before with heavy rain fall now it's dry as a bone.

If your garage has the base plate right on the pad then I would suggest adding a course of block inbetween the plate and the floor. And seal the outside of the block with a good quality masonry sealer.

 

[Dobish]

nice work! i have found that the colorado soil it is best to use a pickaxe, then a rototiller, then a spade, then repeat! I still haven't gotten around to putting my french drain in, but I did decide that it might not even matter since i'm going to tear down the building and put in a garage!

 

[BlueRidgeMark]

Lay in your fabric (make sure it is geotextile, not some garbage landscape fabric).

I can't shout AMEN at this loudly enough. Do NOT use some cheap homeowner weed barrier fabric for your drain! If you can buy it at Lowes, it's the wrong stuff!

If you are going to do that, don't bother digging the drain. Just wait a couple of years, then do it, because if you use weed barrier now you are going to be re-doing it about then anyway and it will be a lot easier if you don't have to dig up the old drain that you screwed up by going cheap on the fabric.

The stuff you want is not sold at Lowes or Home Depot. You'll need to find someone near you who sells to highway contractors. I just did a quick search and found this example:

(broken link removed to http://www.easternsupply.com/product/geotextiles/)

If you are putting it under gravel for a road, you want the woven kind. For your French drain, you want the non-woven kind. This stuff is thick, like a blanket. It's tough and it will keep the fines out of your pipe.

It needs to go in the trench, then stone, then pipe, then stone, then wrap it over the top of the stone. I've heard it described as a stone-filled burrito.

Do NOT just put it on top! It's got to be on all sides of the gravel. Sportrider suggested stone under it, too. I can't see any harm in that, though I'd never heard of that before.

 

[sportbikerider78]

The only thing i will add to that is that from my research..the really thick stuff is used in driveways. Woven geotextile comes in a variety of thicknesses and for a drain it does not need to be of the same quality and toughness as for a driveway.

One like this should do just fine. The type I used is similar and working really well. It's tough. You can't rip it.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00C1S78TA/?tag=hearthamazon-20

 

[BlueRidgeMark]

No, you don't want the woven stuff. It will let the fines through. For a drain, you want the non-woven. It's properly called filter cloth, because it filters out the fines.

Like this stuff.

 

[johneh]

This is what we use
https://www.lowes.com/pd/DRAIN-SLEEVE-100-ft-4-in-Pipe-Sock/3199149
It is made for weeping tile or French drain as you call it

 

[greythorn3]

when you guys do a french drain where does the end of it take the water too? just regular soil at end of pipe or what?

 

[Doc C]

when you guys do a french drain where does the end of it take the water too? just regular soil at end of pipe or what?

Generally you want to run it out to where it will just head out of the area. Preferably a slope or something.

I have in the past ran a French drain into a large drywall but that's asking for problems if not done properly.

 

[greythorn3]

i guess you have to have dig a big hole and fill for gravel if your house is on flat land and not higher up, what about draining a basement thats below grade like a split level house? what the heck could you do there? say a split level where half the basements in the ground and on flat land.

 

[Doc C]

i guess you have to have dig a big hole and fill for gravel if your house is on flat land and not higher up, what about draining a basement thats below grade like a split level house? what the heck could you do there? say a split level where half the basements in the ground and on flat land.

I think what your describing we call a daylight or walk out basement where 3 walls of the basement if below ground and the 4th you can walk out of on to the dirt.

In that case waterproofing is the first step followed by a French drain that feeds to the daylight side and hopefully runs off somewhere.

If I can't run it somewhere which quite frankly is rare in our area then I will dig a dry well, well below the frost line and fill it with gravel. Size depends on several variables

 

[Doc C]

i guess you have to have dig a big hole and fill for gravel if your house is on flat land and not higher up, what about draining a basement thats below grade like a split level house? what the heck could you do there? say a split level where half the basements in the ground and on flat land.

And depending on where you are in alaska you might have a whole nother set of problems with frost lines and cold related stuff.

Depending on your situation, waterproofing might be of the most benefit

 

[sportbikerider78]

No, you don't want the woven stuff. It will let the fines through. For a drain, you want the non-woven. It's properly called filter cloth, because it filters out the fines.

Like this stuff.

I think i clicked on the wrong item on amazon. Sorry about that. I also used a geotextile that looks like what you posted. I don't have any left over to post any pics.