Anybody ever install a french drain in their yard?

[dennis thompson]

I have a very soggy, continually wet back yard. I already have large drain pipes on each side of my yard running to the storm sewer in the street. I have three estimates to install some french drains across the yard which will hook into the large drain pipes. The three estimates are $5,100 , $7,100 and $7,500. I'm wondering if it might be something I can do myself with a couple of laborers to help. Seems fairly straightforward...dig a ditch about 2 ft deep & 8" wide,install filter fabric, put in 2" of gravel, lay in some 4" perforated pipe,cover the pipe with more gravel to about 2" below the top,close up the filter fabric, cover with sod & hook it all up to my existing drains.
Anybody have any experience doing this? Am I crazy to try it? Any thoughts & comments will be appreciated.
Thanks
Dennis

[Jim Kountz]

Sounds close but 8" wide is a bit narrow in my opinion. The ones Ive had put in for customers have been a good bit wider and deeper than that. Not saying that it wouldnt work at 8" wide but you dont want the area to just wash over without soaking in. The wider area would prevent that better I feel. Also depending on how long the drains in question are and your location, those estimates seem sky high to me. Not knowing the length of the drains of the lay of the terrain in question though its hard to say exactly.

[David G Baker]

I dug a trench 12 inches wide by 18 inches deep put 6 inches of rock in the bottom of the trench, added 150 feet of felt covered 4 inch black perf drain pipe, for good measure I covered the pipe with with high grade landscape material, added 6 more inches of rock then folded the land scape cloth over the rock then added soil to top it off. I dug the trench by hand in adobe soil that was hard on top and easy to dig in below the surface. The drain worked great as long as I lived in the place. For some reason my body enjoys digging and I can keep it up for quite a while if the soil is not hard pan or if no pick ax is needed.

[Peter Stahl]

I helped my father in law years ago and he pretty much did what David did. 8 inches wide is on the narrow side.

[Jeff Caskie]

I had similar job done in Louisville, KY for much less $$$. I believe I was quoted $18/lf.... came to $700-800 for close to 50ft. Price included digging w/ mini excavator (I would say at least 12" wide bucket), gravel (don't believe any sand was used) and fabric covered pipe (2x 4"). He also came back to re-dig a small section after a new spring came up.. which does happen as water tends to get redirected. My neighbor had a much more extensive job done which required multiple attempts before the water issue was resolved.

I'm not sure if I could have beaten the price renting all the equipment myself...

Even when hiring somebody, it does make a difference on who you get. My neighbor used a different contractor last year who dug a trench and threw in some pipe.. but it didn't come close to solving the problem. Contractor #2 actually cared about his work. According to the contractor, the pipes are nice for peace of mind, but the gravel is really what does the job of taking the water away...

[Jeff Caskie]

Just remembered... my gf (now fiancé) had one done a few years ago outside Philly and paid ~$1600. I'm not sure how long it was, but I would say it was more than 50'.

[Lee Schierer]

I wouldn't volunteer to help dig unless you had a power digger. That much hand digging will take a while. I would suggest pricing out the materials and equipment and compare your costs for doing it and see how much savings there is for you. Then decide if your time is worth the savings and keep telling yourself how much you are saving as you work out in the yard in your spare time.:D

[dennis thompson]

Thanks for the responses
Jim
There will be several trenches totaling about 180 feet in my back yard . The back yard is on a small hill ,at the bottom of the hill is a stone wall,below the stone wall is a flat area of yard between the house & the wall of about 30' by 90',where the water problem is. It doesn't appear to be surface water but water from under the ground.
I'm in New Jersey where all costs seem to be very high.
What depth & width would you recommend for the ditch?
What size stone would I use (research says anywhere from 1" to 3"?)
How do you figure out how much stone to order?

Thanks again
Dennis

[Joe Pelonio]

I did one at our previous house. It was on a sloped lot and water puddled up in one corner. We had no place to run it with another house behind, so at the end of the ditch I did a hole about 4'x4'x4' and filled it with gravel, filter cloth just below the top. The ditch drained into it about a foot below grade so I was able to put the grass back over it. The ditch looked like a dry creek bed.

[Francis Robinson]

If you believe that it is underground water then a big french drain system is probably over-kill. I'm a life time farmer and land drainage has always been an important part of the equation. You do not indicate that you are being flooded, just that you have a wet yard. Personally to solve that problem (which I have done) all you should need is the 4" slotted plastic field tile installed in a ditch dug spade wide and as deep as you indicate. It is important that the tile have proper "grade" as silt can block tile lines with serious dips in them. That tile is so cheap that you could probably rent a trencher and use it but it does have a learning curve unless you have a little equipment experience. You might find it easier to use one of those little trailer type back-hoes they rent. You can also hire someone to just dig the trench and you do the rest. Such work here runs maybe $2.50 a foot. Sometimes that charge starts after a minimum basic charge.
If your soil is sandy you may want tile with a filtration sleeve over it.
Around here we only use the stone for septic fingers. Soil drains are just tile in soil unless we are draining surface water.
Good luck.

[Rick Gifford]

I have installed a couple french drains. One zig zagged across the yard.. alot of digging!

I think we went 12" wide and about 15" deep. Gravel, drain pipe, gravel again, top soil.

easy to think out, just so much back work

[Rick Moyer]

No help, but i bet that back yard is getting a lot soggier about right now, isn't it? We had large snowflakes coming down much of the afternoon here and rain most of the rest of the day. Yuk! Oh and about 36 degrees. What month is this?

[tyler mckee]

I do dirt work for a living and it sounds like they are taking you to the cleaners for 180 feet of pipe. is there decent access to the site for a small machine and a small dumptruck (just a one ton truck would do)?

as a side note i'm putting in sewer mains that are anywhere from 6-16 feet deep and i believe our rate was about $35 a foot and thats a prevailing wage project. Even the cheap estimate is nearly $28 a foot.

[Jeffrey Makiel]

I'm in New Jersey where all costs seem to be very high.

Boy, you got that right!

Getting three quotes is very thorough. However, I'm a bit concerned with the large gap between the first and second quote.

-Jeff :)

[Cliff Rohrabacher]

In NJ water is treated under the legal doctrine of "common enemy."
Which, if you get a bare bones law school definition, sounds like you can do anything you want. But the municipalities all have their own regs.

Scotch Plains and Fanwood have a limit on how much soil per year you can add to raise the land above the water table (6" I believe).
The same applies to your drainage issues. Some municipalities have lots of regs about water handling some have none.
Get familiar with local regs and how your local inspector interprets them.

I have seen some very strange NJ code enforcement inspectors. An electrical inspector once told me that he didn't allow right angle bends in Romex cable because the electrons would fly off the wire being as how dey wuz zippin' along at da speed-O-lyte.

As an aside you might want to get a hold of the state DEP map of your area and make sure that the State Surveyor hasn't declared your back yard "open water" which if they have (and they can) you can't touch it for fear of running into hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines. They take their maps very seriously.

[Larry Wadman]

Thanks for the responses
Jim
There will be several trenches totaling about 180 feet in my back yard . The back yard is on a small hill ,at the bottom of the hill is a stone wall,below the stone wall is a flat area of yard between the house & the wall of about 30' by 90',where the water problem is. It doesn't appear to be surface water but water from under the ground.
I'm in New Jersey where all costs seem to be very high.
What depth & width would you recommend for the ditch?
What size stone would I use (research says anywhere from 1" to 3"?) I would use a #57 washed gravel (no fines).
How do you figure out how much stone to order? gravel will weigh about 125 lbs/cf. I fiqure 2.1 tons per yard when double handling is involved due to waste.



Thanks again
Dennis

Width will depend on bucket size. I would say about 1' for a 4" pipe. Rent a mini excavator to dig and a skid steer to move the gravel (or a shovel and wheel barrow works also. Depth should be 12" minimum. If you run heavy loads over your yard the you will have to go with a heavier pipe. Set your pipe to drain.

[paul cottingham]

My father used to dig those by hand. In fact he did quite a bit of our farm by hand and by himself, at the age of 65. And he was a tiny little guy to boot.

To be fair he really enjoyed hard physical labor, so it can be done if you don't mind sweating.