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Help with a french drain

Posted on 6/3/15 at 11:46 am
Posted by KJason
Baton Rouge
Member since Mar 2008
1199 posts
Posted on 6/3/15 at 11:46 am
The west and south sides of my backyard hold a lot of water. I would like to install French drains that connect in the SW corner and then empty into a drainage pipe in the SE corner. I am not very familiar with putting in a French drain, can anyone point me to a good starting point?

Both drains will be 50'-80'
Posted by upgrayedd
Lifting at Tobin's house
Member since Mar 2013
134839 posts
Posted on 6/3/15 at 11:48 am to
quote:

Both drains will be 50'-80'

That's a lot of drain
Posted by Broke
AKA Buttercup
Member since Sep 2006
65039 posts
Posted on 6/3/15 at 11:54 am to
quote:

Both drains will be 50'-80'


Say what?
Posted by TigerDeacon
West Monroe, LA
Member since Sep 2003
29258 posts
Posted on 6/3/15 at 11:57 am to
quote:

can anyone point me to a good starting point?


Hire someone that knows what they are doing. If you try to do that yourself and you don't get it right, you end up with a bigger mess than you have now.
Posted by KJason
Baton Rouge
Member since Mar 2008
1199 posts
Posted on 6/3/15 at 12:13 pm to
quote:

Say what?



Care to elaborate?


What is an acceptable length?
Posted by nhassl1
Baton Rouge
Member since Jun 2008
1932 posts
Posted on 6/3/15 at 12:15 pm to
Where do you live? I could give you a name or two.
Posted by TheDrunkenTigah
Baton Rouge
Member since Aug 2011
17314 posts
Posted on 6/3/15 at 12:17 pm to
I'm a do-it-yourselfer type, but I installed a french drain a few years back and I'll never do it again. That length is going to be hell to grade correctly. Pay someone with the skills and tools to knock it out in a day or two, instead of spending three weeks covered in mud staring at a level.
Posted by KJason
Baton Rouge
Member since Mar 2008
1199 posts
Posted on 6/3/15 at 12:23 pm to
Baton Rouge. Pecue and Airline


Thanks for your replies. Sounds like I'll be hiring someone
Posted by Agforlife
Somewhere in the Brazos Valley
Member since Nov 2012
20102 posts
Posted on 6/3/15 at 12:38 pm to
Your going to need a minimum of .02% slope for it to drain correctly, start at the pipe you want it to empty into and work the grade back a to make sure you aren't going to daylight the pipe
Posted by Citica8
Duckroost, LA
Member since Dec 2012
3665 posts
Posted on 6/3/15 at 1:11 pm to
Sorry to hijack, but I had to look it up cause I didn't know that's what it's called but I overheard someone talking about it saying that because there is such a wide variety of the types of soils around the Baton Rouge area that a lot of times a "French drain" isn't very efficient, depending on your soil make up.

Any truth to this for some of you who may know?
Posted by Tbooux
Member since Oct 2011
1680 posts
Posted on 6/3/15 at 2:04 pm to
quote:

French drain" isn't very efficient, depending on your soil make up


Absolutely, used to have a drainage and irrigation business and I rarely installed french drains as without sandy soil they will do you no good.

An option is to dig your drain but backfill with sand only which will allow the water to seep into the drain and run out.

9 times out of 10 wet spots can be alleviated with proper grading by bringing in some dirt to push standing water to where it will drain or tilling and regrading entire yard to slope correctly. If neither above is not an option properly placed catch basins will work much better than french drains in the clay soil we have around BR.
This post was edited on 6/3/15 at 2:52 pm
Posted by dawg23
Baton Rouge, La
Member since Jul 2011
5065 posts
Posted on 6/3/15 at 4:54 pm to
quote:

9 times out of 10 wet spots can be alleviated with proper grading by bringing in some dirt to push standing water to where it will drain or tilling and regrading entire yard to slope correctly. If neither above is not an option properly placed catch basins will work much better than french drains in the clay soil we have around BR.
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