The term french drain is tossed around on the internet under many contexts.
Few of these home drainage solutions work well, if at all.
Many of these drainage concepts are simply not drainage solutions at all.
It is amazing to see that many sites on the internet continue to discuss methods of home groundwater removal that use the term french drain, but are actually, from my perspective, by their own description, nothing more than a ditch containing gravel, and other inappropriate materials all cumulatively, being referred to as french drains.
Many sites using french drain as a heading discuss the use of machines such as ditch witches and other sites talk about backhoes.
While these so called drainage experts flood the internet with sloppy science and sloppy facts, creating sloppy drainage, the real fact is that hand excavated french drains, ie. french drains, have been in existence long before the use of machines ever were thought of, and are much more effective and long lasting than any system created with a machine.
A real french drain is hand excavated, and takes much longer in manhours to construct, install and plumb.
It never contains gravel, sand, or dirt mix, and does not have a perforated pipe with a sock over it, that plugs and prevents groundwater from entering the perforated pipe.
A quality, engineered french drain does not contain road cloth, or weed cloth, wrapped up in a big bundle, with gravel and a perforated pipe smothered there in.
A real quality french drain does not have a grade of 12″ per 100 lineal feet. That is too flat.
The grade is around twice that engineering standard. More like 2″ per 10 lineal feet or greater.
Eventually the sloppy science and engineering behind those so called home drainage experts will be the very reason why so many of you home drainage readers and seekers will find their way to AAA Home Drainage, and the information available here, given freely, to educate homeowners around the world about home groundwater drainage solutions.
Each year I tear up many of these other types of home drainage attempts, so that the area can be used for the installation of hand excavated french drains.
I currently have a pile of footing drain perforated pipe with a sock over it, plugged with dirt completely, cut up in sections when removed, and now stacked behind a shed, waiting for the next dump run. This is so common.
Homeowners get hood winked into thinking that just because a certain contractor uses the term french drain, that they are getting the real thing, and that there is one definition.
Most often they are getting a ditch full of debris and rock, with little to no grade, from a contractor that doesn’t even know the difference in functional ability between the two, or perhaps does, and doesn’t care, or can’t pull the real thing off.
This is the way it turns out for many homeowners, over and over again, failure after failure..
Consequently the homeowners believe that french drains do not work, and they tell me so.
So these types of homeowners fall for some other type of home drainage scam, like a sump pump installation, to extract money from them without results.
The quality of home drainage information on the internet, under the keywords french drains varies greatly, and is for the most part, a bunch of bunk. Or is written to support a specific manufacturer that is selling a costly specific plastic drainage gadget or product of some sort, in the name of home drainage with french drains.
Many times the site purporting to teach the engineering behind the installation of french drains is marketing some specific product, like a channel drain system, that they think is a substitute for the labors involved in the creation of hand excavated french drains.
Do not be confused by the use of the words french drain as a local, as well as an internet generic term. It means very little, and does not include the right information most of the time, to tell the difference either.
Go to the internet and look up “hand excavated french drains”, “home groundwater removal”,” home drainage, groundwater problems, Portland french drains, hand excavated dry wells, and other home drainage key words, and see who is recognized as the worlds leader in home drainage information and listed at the top of the page.
Learn not only what to look for in a french drains and contractors, as well as what not to look for.
Always specify hand excavated french drains, for long lasting groundwater removal results.