French Drain Pipe

French drains do a fantastic job of keeping a homeowner’s yard dry when the right material (proper pipe, filter fabric and round rock) is used. The way your French drain system is set up can also determine how fast your yard is going to dry up, and if the water has a place to get to, or if it “stays” in the trench.

The French Drain Pipe

The purpose of the pipe in a French drain system is to “carry” the water away from the area that is water logged.

The placement of pipe really makes a difference in how the drain works, and for how long it will work for.

When the pipe is placed on top of the rock that is in the trench, there will always be standing water under the pipe. If you have standing water, tree roots will seek out the water and infiltrate the system.

As the roots begin to clog up the pipe, they will need to be cleaned out by a jetting machine.

This jetting machine can remove the roots from inside the pipe, but will not be able to completely rid the pipe of them.

Days/months later the roots will have regrown inside of the pipe again. Therefore, this cleaning and regrowing will continue indefinitely.

A better drainage pipe to use for a French Drain system would be perforated pipe. Perforated pipe (Baughman tile) is placed directly onto the bottom of the trench that is layered with tested filter fabric, not on gravel or rock. Because of this placement, there will be no standing water in the system, and the water can easily get taken to its discharge station.

The layout of the pipe and how much pipe is placed in your French Drain system is important because the pipe that is in the ground absorbs surface and subsurface groundwater, and makes it disappear to the designated area.

 The more water that gets into your system, the dryer your yard will be.

This means that the more pipe that is placed in your yard, the better the drainage system. The best layout is different for each yard and space.

The layout of your French Drain system should be based on your budget, and how quick you want your yard to dry after a rainfall.

Keep in mind that you can always upgrade your system later down the road if you want your yard to dry out faster.

Just remember that if you are going to upgrade, the original system would have needed to be built “properly” to allow the system to function together.

In other words, if the old system was built with Big “O”pipe, and the new system was built with Baughman drainage tile, one side of your yard is going to need to be replaced sooner than the other, and will always dry faster.

The Amount Of Pipe That Is Placed In Your Yard (The French Drain System)

The layout (and amount) of the drainage pipe placed in your yard is important because the more collected water that gets into your system, the dryer your yard will be.

This means that the more drainage pipe that is placed in your yard, the better the drainage system.

Finding a contractor that is going to design your French drain system based on what your yard needs, and the best materials will ensure that you have a drainage system that will last.