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Tips For Making Sure Your Residential French Drain Works Properly

2 March 2015

Margie Craig

If you are about to start digging up your yard so you can add a french drain, you might be in need of a little advice in order to make sure that it is going to work properly. After all, you would hate to go through all of the trouble of installing a french drain just for water to still come pouring into your basement. In order to help make sure that you are on the right track with the installation of the drain, you are going to want to check out the following helpful tips.

Slope The Trench Out To The Sides

Think about the reason you are installing a french drain to begin with. The concept is to keep water from rolling through your yard and ending up pushing against your foundation walls until it seeps into your basement. Therefore, once the water falls into your french drain, you need to make sure that it is moving away from your house. Otherwise, the water will just sit there and puddle up until it rolls back out of the french drain and towards your house.

You need to make the middle of the french drain the highest point. From there, you need the drain to slightly slope down on both sides so that the water will roll down and away from the foundation of your home. The further away that water moves, the less likely it is going to harm the condition of your property. Now, with that said, you do not have to create a large slope, especially since some french drains can be rather long. While there is no standard rule to live by when it comes to the depth of the slope, you just need to make sure that it is a slow and steady decline.

Use Landscape Fabric Before The Rocks

After you have dug out the soil for your french drain, you are going to want to lay landscaping fabric down along the bottom and sides of the drain. This will not only help keep the weeds away, but it will help to make sure that the soil does not clog up the rocks which would then make it difficult for the water to make its way through the drain. The nice thing about this is that you do not need any particular thickness of landscaping fabric so whatever you have on hand or that you find on sale will work just fine.

As you can imagine, the french drain will quickly become one of the best improvements you have made to your property in a while, especially since you will no longer have to worry about a wet basement. With these tips in mind, you will surely end up with the best functioning french drain possible. Talk to experts like Michael Bellantoni for more information.

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