Installing corrugated drain tile

Almost all homes are built on some sort of slope, so if you have acres of land above your home, the water in the soil is all marching and flowing towards your house. Water will take the path of least resistance. It can choose to go sideways through a crack in your foundation, or it can go down alongside your foundation through clean, washed gravel into a pipe. Here are three of the four parts of the system. The missing part is what happens with the round drain pipe.

It will either extend sideways to daylight if the slope is steep around the house, or it will go under the footing to a sump pit in the basement or crawlspace. The drain tile or pipe is usually 4" in diameter and is perforated or has pre-drilled holes along its length.

Depending upon the type, it can be purchased in rolls up to ' or in foot sections. Fittings are available to allow you to go around corners or interconnect the pipe. I've never been a fan of the rolls of black corrugated drain tile with the slits in the cracks.

I prefer the more rigid white plastic pipe with two rows of drainage holes drilled into the pipe. The filter media or gravel is used to cover the drain tile. Water can flow readily through this gravel and find its way to the pipe. One customer wanted me to ensure his room addition basement never had water in it.

He was willing to pay to have the high-side foundation wall that pointed upslope filled completely with the nice rounded gravel. There was no way water was going to ever try to force its way into his basement when it had the chance to go straight down to the drain-tile pipe. Remember, water takes the path of least resistance. Some soils, heavy clays, resist water movement. This gravel is about the size of a walnut or large grapes.

Some parts of the USA have crushed gravel this size. It's not rounded, but that really doesn't matter. All that matters is that you just put in this rock and no sandy gravel. Sand slows down the movement of the moving water. If your soil is like this, the water would rather go sideways into your basement than down through the clay soil to the drain tile.

You must protect the gravel with a barrier. It prevents silt and mud from the soil from clogging the gravel or the drain tile pipe. During excavation, dirt removed from the hole is fluffed. This means that it is disturbed and broken up.

It's volume usually increases about ten percent. It's loosened and disturbed more during backfilling procedures. As the soil gets disturbed, small dirt particles, or silt, are created and separated.

These are carried through the gravel by the rainwater or snowmelt which enters this soil. Very few builders take the time to compact the soil around the outside of a house so Mother Nature does it using water and gravity.

Without a barrier of some type covering the clean gravel, these silt particles immediately clog the gravel and drain tile and render it useless. They're either ill-informed or lying to you. If you use straw, just scatter a inch layer on top of the gravel before you put in any soil on top of the gravel. The water outlet is simply the place where the collected water flows to. Plastic corrugated pipe is less expensive and easier to install. More commonly called a foundation drain when used this way, it collects water and directs it to a safe runoff area.

French drains are common, and landscapers install them frequently to handle drainage problems. The first thing you need to install one is a good shovel, or even better, a trencher, because you have to dig a trench deep and wide enough to accommodate 4-inch perforated drainpipe.

If you prefer, you can use gravel-free French drain piping, which consists of perforated pipe enclosed in polystyrene aggregate and covered in filter cloth. One of the most important things to remember when digging a trench for a French drain is to make the trench deep and wide enough to accommodate the pipe, gravel and a covering layer of sand or topsoil.

The trench should have a minimum width of 12 inches and a minimum depth of 8 to 24 inches, depending on the soil and topography. Because the trench slopes, its depth will vary from the drainage point to the runoff point. That means if a foot trench is 18 inches deep at the drainage point, it needs to be at least 23 inches deep at the runoff point.

If you need to trench across your entire yard, or the soil is rocky and difficult to dig, consider renting a trencher. It will do the work in a fraction of the time it takes you to do it by hand. You lay the pipe with the perforations facing down, because the drain actually works by absorbing water from below.

If your drain is longer than a single pipe or roll of piping, or the trench has a sharp curve, be sure to purchase the appropriate couplings and elbows. PVC, or polyvinyl chloride, pipe is a more cost-effective type of pipe than some others like metal or terra cotta.

It's important that you understand the different uses and the advantages and disadvantages of using white PVC pipe versus black corrugated pipe so that you can make the best decision about materials for your situation. You obviously want to do the project right the first time and not have to go back and repair or replace your work. Whether you choose black corrugated pipe or white PVC, make sure that it's the best option for your project.

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