french drain help needed

[383 240z]

Well it happened, the 100 year old clay pipes that my roof drain spouts feed in to are clogged and collapsed. It has been raining here really bad for the last few days and I my basement flooded from the water coming against my dry fit stone foundation. So I have decided to dig a large french drain along the two sides of the house that are getting all the water. I figure that if a standard drain is 8"x8" with a 4" pipe, I'm gonna go super size with a 12"x12" with a 6" pipe. the deepest portion of the dig will be about 36" deep total lenght of 100'. No that being said I am a fat lazy man, I aint digging this thing by hand!!! What kind of rental tool would be best to dig this with? The main run will be dug thru soft soil worst I will encounter is a stray rock. Now I figure if I am gonna do that one I might as well run one more across the front of my shop as it is flooding with water after heavy rains. This one will be a more difficult dig 40' of it will be hard packed gravel 8"-10" deep, im guessing 24" deep, same 12" wide, the last 15' of the dir will be clay, and roots from a large tree I cut down 2 years ago. would the same tool work on that? I have an idea that this kind of tool will work http://www.ditchwitch.com/trenchers-plows/walk-behind/RT24-trencher/ It has the depth I need, but a max of 8" width. How does this type of machine dump the spoil? I'm sure it wont put it back in the hole. Any ways guys what are your thoughts?? Keith

 

[shoot summ]

Rent a mini track hoe, will make short work of it, a trencher isn't the right tool for this...

I rented one on the trailer for $200 for the weekend.

 

[p_mori7]

I would rent a mini excavator.

 

[Motofixxer]

A mini excavator would make an easy job of it, and allow you to push the dirt back in also. Most are available with a 9" bucket.

 

[Frank The Plumber]

You have multiple things to address;

From my understanding you had a downspout line that ran next to your home and it broke up. You now want to replace it or do something to move water away from a stone foundation home.

A pipe that flows the water away will always be superior to any type or field style drain.

If you dig a subsurface field style drain near your home, even 8 feet away, you still are only relying upon the grounds ability to absorb the waters. At a certain point the ground will reach saturation, at this point it will relieve itself where ever possible, possibly at the point of your stone wall into your basement.

next to a home any type of mechanized excavation can be hazardous, any number of pipes could be present or even utilities from other peoples homes. A ditch witch style rotary excavator is going to be the worst thing to use as you do not even get to sight the excavating surface, you just saw the soils and flip it to the side. Sorry to say the best way to dig this is with a couple of guys on the ends of shovels.

If you can try to reconnect your DS line underground using a fernco fitting, rarely is the line destroyed throughout, the sections are usually 30" long, hunt for the next one and see what you have, many times just a few feet after the 90 at the base the line cleans up and you can do a reconnect.

I would chase the line down the hole with a shovel and see what I had before I declared total war on the drain lines. You could get off for a couple a hundred as compared to a couple a grand.

 

[383 240z]

Frank I was hopeing you would get on this one. The clay pipe is destroyed. I had the plan of putting a 4" perferated pipe wrapped with a sock to keep dirt and roots out, buried in a 12"x12" and the whole thing wrapped in landscaping cloth

the bottom one is what I have in mind.

There are 4 downspouts that will be feeding into this drain, it will run parallel to my home , extending 20' past the house on the down hill side. the water will be diverted into what was the spring house back in 1830 when my home was built. The surface of the roof that is feeding the drain will be about 1400sq ft.
The basement was dry when we bought this house 5-6 years ago, 2 years ago we started getting a bit of water after very hard rains, today we got a killer storm, the local weather put it at 1.5" per hour, I ended up with 5" of water in my basement. There are 2 drains in the poured cement floor, One was flowing great, I will be needing to rent a power drain cleaner for the other. Anyway I had what looked like a spring house running thru the house. I had what looked like a 1/2", a 1", and a 2" supply line pumping water into the basement thru the dryfit foundation. Mrs. 383 240z was freaking out as she saw the water level rising to the bottom of the the brand new furnace we just put in. We know that the basement will never be 100% dry I am just looking for the best way to divert the most water away from the foundation. I am not worried much about the cost. I know that if I do all of the labor the cost of the materials is pretty low. I figure worst case we will be out $1000. Best case we have a MUCH drier basement, I have been thinking thru the ways we can make it a useable space, and dry is the bigest problem facing us right now.

If I was a rich man I would excavate the entire exterior of the house and install a water proof membrane, weeping tile system, and french drain around the whole thing. If I had hours and hours of free time, I would buy a jack hammer, tearout the whole floor put in an interior weeping tile system and a floor drain that would carry the water to a gravel pit and be pumped out of the house. Keith

 

[hockey88fan]

+1 for the mini, it will make the job a piece of cake.

 

[70redbee]

As Frank said...do not use a machine to do this, hand digging is the only safe way. Go to your local Home Depot or Lowes or 7-11 and hire you a couple of Hispanics and give them picks and shovels. You will have to watch them closely, but these guys work very hard and will work for a fair hourly rate. There are usually several guys looking for work on a daily basis but you need to get there early in the morning. Find you at least one that speaks English and he can talk to the others.I think you will be happy with their work and will be less expesive than renting equipment.

 

[rieferman]

For carrying gutter/roof water away you'll want a solid pipe in my opinion. That pipe doesn't need to be burried very deeply. Catching ground water (french drain) is where slit pipe etc. is needed.

On that note, I was at the plastics supply house the other day and saw the slit pipe wrapped with packing peanuts assembly that's intended for french drain work (and similar). I'd seen this at the big box stores but hadn't seen it at this specialty store before. I asked him about it and he said "We resisted the product as an unproven fad for the first two years... but after hearing many contractors that we trust and respect vouch for it, we decided to pickup the line... it's among our biggest sellers now". The benefit of the product being speed and weight. Just something to consider, I haven't used it first hand, but would tend to trust this guy's opinion as he's steered me straight before.

 

[Jackfre]

I had a french drain installed at my home. It started at 7' and about 100' later was at grade. It worked great...until 5 yrs in the sch 10 (thin) pvc drain pipe collapsed. Mine had the DS's and foundation drain, cloth and a lot of gravel. I decided to start at grade and dig back to the corner of the house, about 70'. Given that a pick and shovel hold no mysteries for me, and the boss was visiting her folks, I figured I could hand dig it, and I did, replaced the Thin pipe with 4" sch 40 and backfilled it. Number 1, it didn't fix the problem. #2 I caught he** from the boss upon her return and number three, given that I don't have the upper body muscle I had 45 yrs ago, i ended up with tendonitis in both elbows. 5 yrs later, it is still there. AND, i still had to bring in a hoe to open up the rest of the foundation. I did run two drains then. One for the DS's and one for the foundation drain. Tied them together at the low corner of the house. If you are going to do this, once it is open I'd suggest water proofing the wall foundation intersection. Water removal is kind of a "removing all the weak links" you can type of thing. Once it is open, do it all! Good luck, and keep us posted on results.

 

[slickgt1]

I wouldn't do the french drain in your case as well. I would do as Frank suggested. Trust me. My father in law had the same idea as you. Set it up, huge pipes to collect and disperse the water. The past weekend that french drain could not handle it. Water backed up to the gutters, and was coming down the side of the house. He took a drill to the down pipe to relieve the system. Guess what we are doing now. Fishing out the old plumbing and making it right. Yea it worked for a while, but this last huge rain, the the french drain system FAILED.

 

[Frank The Plumber]

There are some factors to consider. Local code, distance or effects your drain may have upon another home, soil types as well as slope and terrain.

If in fact you have ample space on each side of your home you might be able to use a subsoils drain as you have detailed. I would try to get it as far from the home as I could, I would use a solid SDR 35 PVC pipe to route it from the home and then do some subsoil fields as you drew. The subsoil fields will inject the water directly into the ground for better absorption they will however have a maximum capacity, once that capacity is met the waters will overflow at the point of entry next to the home. I would route an overflow downspout at the base of the connection to route away any water that the french type drains can not handle. This overflow can be weather impacted which is a drawback. You have to dig your drains in deep enough to weather proof them as well.

If you are going to proceed with the drain system I would use solid pipe with perforations not the black flex tube, it crushes. I would sock it through out. I would put in a base of 1" river stone and completely surround my socked pipe with it as you detail. At the top of the pea or river stone I would place a landscape membrane that will stop small soils and sands, tuck it down around the sides so that the top and sides are protected from in fill soils. Put a 4 to 6 inch covering of CA 5 or 7 stone on top, compact a bit and cover with your normal soils. You do not want the surface water getting into your field, you want your roof runoff water to use that space and let the surface water stand or travel else where.

Keep in mind, nothing can give you a 100% dry basement, you can only stack your odds. Even the tightest ship in the Navy has a bilge.

You always want to throw the water as far from the home as possible, as water percolates into the soil it raises the pressures of the water subsoil, this causes it to travel underground until it gets to a place where there is little resistance. Sometimes that place is a basement. The more it rains the more the soil loads.

 

[flybefree]

Not a plumber, but if your house is in the burbs can you run the exit end out to the street and evacuate the water down the storm drain? In the county I live the ditches are all graded into the field tiles...get the water to the ditch and you are good to go.

 

[camarotoolman]

i would hire a very experinced guy with a back hoe. Renting and not knowing how to run it could lead to trouble ie. a caved it wall or worse.

 

[Motofixxer]

Depending on your abilities...excavating can be done just fine with no experience. I rented a mini excavator having never actually operated one before other than driving one off a trailer. Then proceeded to excavate around my parents house to do some foundation repair and water proofing. But I had worked around the equipment and contractors for a while previous, so I had a bit of foreknowledge that helped.

It's not for the faint of heart though. Do your homework first, get everything located ahead of time.