A Completed French Drain System

Yesterday we installed a french drain system between two houses. In many suburbs between houses is a big area for water to collect in. If there is heavy soil and very little slope, the area needs a bit of help so that when you mow the lawn it isn’t soft and spongy. this area will hold water between homes. In this case, there was a collection pond that we could take the water out to. Today we came back to do some extra work.

In a few weeks, the sod will knit together beautifully and you won’t be able to tell we were ever here. We essentially put the french drain right on the property line. As you can see the trench was 16″ wide, the depth varies but at its shallowest point, the trench was 14″ deep. It rained about an inch and a half last night which was a great test for this system. There is no standing water at all, I’m walking right on the soil. We ended up with about two feet of fall at this point, which is pretty close to the retention pond.

That is essentially our discharge area. We drilled 50 half-inch holes in this catch basin. We dug an oversized hole for it and filled it full of 6A stone, the largest stone with larger voids. This was moving a lot of water last night.