No matter what line the sump pump installers give you about a guarantee, crawl space sump pump systems do not prevent groundwater from entering below grade, ever. Their guarantee is worthless. Their methods are deceptive. Their experience may be as little as absolute zero.

A sump pump installation should be used only after you have determined that either a hand excavated french drain and a compacted grade splash block of dirt and clay to enhance rain run off away from the foundation cannot be installed on the outside of the foundation wall to stop the groundwater entry.

There are many types of limitations to optimum home drainage success, with respect to the exterior of the homes construction or topography, that can prevent the installation of the correct solution. This additionally compounds things. Home drainage is often at the top of the made to fail list among all home improvements.

Installing an interior crawl space hand excavated french drain is not a very effective way to collect the groundwater, even if you need one, unless done in a specific way. Most often sump pump installations are simply a bad dream for the homeowners and the beginning of a financial nightmare as they find there way to AAA Home Drainage and hand excavated french drains.

Excavating long lengths of hand excavated french drains along the inside of the foundation wall is futile, they become long sloppy trenches without a grade, and without the ability to perform much at all. Oh sure, the sump pump goes on when the ditches fill up with standing groundwater. Big deal. Failure. The water is standing and only flowing out the end of the ditch when it has been saturating for days and is finally full of water. All that time before the sump pump goes off is damaging your homes foundation and air. That is a guarantee you can count on.

It sounds so good when some dude says his answer involves making a sump well and a trench around your crawl space foundation area. A big fat sloppy ditch is all you get. And a crawl space that will be wet until you remove the groundwater on the outside of the foundation eventually.

Some internet and television drainage pundits, as well as some builder and contractor internet sites, refer to their attempted interior crawl space french drains as trenches or ditches. A hand excavated french drain is not a ditch or a trench. Guaranteed no results is what homeowners get from these sump characters. Money lost.

These sump guy sloppy no grade ditches will not gravity flow water to a sump pump area at all. They do not even overflow fast enough to help remove the groundwater prior to the saturation of the crawl space floor.

The distances of your interior hand excavated french drains are limited to around 20 feet in length approximately. The hand excavated french drains should not be excavated deeper than around 12″ deep at the sump well, and around 8″ deep at the top of the interior crawlspace hand excavated french drain grade, in order to create a grade of 2″ per 10 lineal feet of grade, so the groundwater will flow quickly to the sump pump.

The interior crawlspace hand excavated crawlspace french drain is the same width as an exterior hand excavated french drain, 12″ wide.

Because of these logistical facts, the distance that can be covered in lineal feet for each collection line is limited when installing them to vent at a depth at the sump well of no more than around 12″ deep.

The proper way to design this type of system is to install a series of hand excavated french drains sloping from different directions to a center sump well, located in the deepest area where groundwater collects. A series of perhaps 2-3 french drains all venting through river rock and a perforated pipe to a sump pump well.

If the sump well containing the sump pump is around 18″-24″ wide and 18″ deep, and the shallow crawl space french drain enters the sump well area at a depth of 12″, this leaves 6″ of depth within the sump well in which the groundwater can build in height prior to the sump pump pumping it out. This installation has the 3″ perforated pipe installed in a hand excavated french drain aqua duct at approximately 8″ deep, sloping to 12″ deep. Get the picture?

To make it even a worse deal for the homes health, the sump pump is not designed to pump out all the groundwater at the bottom of the sump well. It either soaks back into the soil around the sump well, which is most common, or it evaporates into your crawl space over time.

The 2″ approximately of groundwater that remains within the sump well after the sump pump discharges what it can, is a good reason not to install one unless absolutely necessary in the first place. Groundwater just soaks back into the soil keeping dampness there all the time.

3″ flexible ads perforated pipe and 3/4″-1 1/2″ river rock should be installed with weed cloth in the same manner as is used for the exterior hand excavated french drain installation, as described in many articles within this blog.

Two 14″ o.d. concrete cylinders or larger, if you can get them into the crawl space, are installed within the sump well. The concrete tiles are stacked.

From my experience, this is your best option. Concrete cylinder installation only, rather than using plastic tanks or buckets, even worse, which do not function the correct way, and do not insulate for cold and sound. Plastic floats up and fails if not anchored.

Surround the cylinders with 3/4″-1 1/2″ river rock a few inches around the sump well cylinders and under them as well. By setting the tiles on top of a bed of rock, clean water is pumped through the system as the groundwater is cleaned as it runs through the river rock.

River rock is also used in interior crawlspace french drains just like exterior systems.

You are limited by engineering depth as well within the crawl space, and that in turn limits the amount of lineal feet your french drain can travel at a 2″ per 10 lineal foot grade, while also not being deeper than 12″ deep at the dry well.

Put a concrete top with some insulation over the cylinders to kill the noise of the sump pump. Try not to install these noisy sump pumps in the crawl space located right under your bedroom floor, if you want a good nights sleep in rainy weather.

Insulate the sump pump discharge, which is 1 1/2″ abs pipe, for added noise protection, and never use pvc pipe to discharge the sump pump. Sump pumps vent with abs pipe.

Do not vent the sump pump out a foundation vent allowing groundwater to simply soak next to the foundation again, effectively recycling the same groundwater over and over.

Beware of installing sump pumps into rain drain discharges that can overflow when the sump pump pressure kicks in. Usually, these sump pump discharges create pressure on the rain drain discharge system itself and over power it with pressure. The rain drain discharges overflow like fountains next to the foundation, unless the rain drain discharge system will take the pressure of the discharged sump pump, which sometimes they do, depending on age and how they were originally plumbed.

The best sump pump installations are vented well away from the home to a daylighted vent, or into a hand excavated dry well, were your exterior hand excavated french drains vent. Nice to do them both at the same time. Right? This is best done in conjunction with the installation of your hand excavated exterior french drain and dry well.

Again, I make the emphatic point that interior crawl space french drain installations will not stop the groundwater from entering your basement or crawl space. They will fail as your foundation footings keep sinking. They do not prevent trapping moisture, a problem in your crawl space, or prevent dryrot of posts and beams. Sump pump installations do not prevent other associated health problems related to groundwater entry from standing groundwater.

Unless prevented by obstacles or limitations of gravity and engineering, almost every time the home drainage groundwater solution in the end has everything to do with the installation of hand excavated french drains on the outside of the foundation to stop the groundwater from entering below grade in the first place. Often this can not be accomplished prior to a new drainage contractor deconstructing a formerly installed and failed groundwater solution attempt first, prior to often installing hand excavated french drains in the same area.

If the groundwater is still entering the crawlspace or basement, would a reasonable mind assume that the sump pump is a solution to the problem, or a bandaid?

Let me put it to you this way. If you owned a boat, and the boat was taking on water when put into the ocean, would you install another bilge pump to remove the water, or find out how to patch the hole that is letting in the water?

If you miss that question on the test, you are likely the person to conclude that the sump pump installation is the first thing to do just because it is likely cheaper.

You are just throwing your money away by installing sump pumps and thinking they will solve your groundwater problem.

Perhaps you are the seller of the home, and you just want to con the buyer into thinking that a solution to the groundwater problem has been created.

One of the major points of home drainage logic that I continue to drive into the minds of home buyers is to recognize the sump pump home sellers ploy.

Thousands of home buyers are bilked each year of hard earned cash with sump pump installations without a prayer of changing the groundwater entry problem into their crawlspace or basement.

When those new buyers become sellers, many of them are just plain pissed off and blame their ignorance of the subject on who ever sold them the home. Some sue the sellers and prevail, and others just try to pass on the home drainage problem to the next buyer.

When the groundwater problem becomes an issue again, when disclosed in a new pest dryrot and structural inspection during the sale of the home, the sellers have an expensive home drainage problem to deal with.

So, what’s the answer? Wait until the post beam structure supporting the home and the groundwater problem has caused home damage, and has caused tens of thousands of dollars worth of reconstruction work, or install hand excavated french drains to prevent the groundwater from entering below grade in the first place?

The answer to this home drainage groundwater problem is, to not buy a home with a groundwater drainage problem. If you buy it, have the seller, or you, install hand excavated french drains to solve the drainage problem.

If you do not take advantage of free information on the subject of groundwater removal and hand excavated french drains, expect to be a home drainage victim. It’s not a possibility, it is a certainty.

The home drainage problem won’t just go away. Oh, it may go away for long enough to allow you to mellow and forget about it for a few months, or maybe even a year if we get no hard rains, but eventually it will be back, only worse than before.

Take control of the home buying process by inspecting for the signs of groundwater drainage problems during the first viewing of the property.

Write home repair clauses into the earnest money agreement to obligate the sellers to pay for any repairs, including groundwater issues, prior to closing, or pass on that home, and find another home to buy. It is a buyers market totally.

Read this web site and learn how to protect yourself from home seller fraud with respect to home drainage problems. You will find the answers you need, and will never need to hire me to solve your groundwater drainage problem.

The author says that his sump pump installation method and channel cutting of the basement floor is much more effective at picking up the groundwater and sending it to the sump pump than exterior foundation hand excavated french drains are at preventing groundwater from coming in. What a laugh. This guy would be laughed out of the conference if he was among professionals. Yet the public buys into this guys b.s. on an every day basis. Ignorance of home drainage causes the loss of millions of dollars every year around the United States.

While this character, ops contractor, is pitching a sump pump installation by saying that exterior french drains fail where his systems do not, his logic is worse than thin, it is a lie.

Groundwater always comes in was the original assessment by the flim flam man, because of the underground river and the steelhead, remember? Well, just like he said, there is always groundwater to pump. Makes him look pretty smart huh? Wrong! it would be after his installation of the basement channels, bored foundation walls full of holes at the base of the foundation wall and always a wet smell to your basement that his logic seems solid if he has convinced you to abandon the logic of groundwater prevention instead of fatalism. He said there was always going to be groundwater and it was way below ground where french drains could not get it. Only he could get it right? These creeps are just plain stupid or they actually are selling that snake oil logic with the intention of ripping you off from the start. That’s my vote from my experience.

See your real estate transactions go smoothly. See your families health always super and free of mold and mildew caused respiratory problems.

Don’t be scammed by sump pump flim flam man stories that are most often outright lies. Only ignorant homeowners that are without home drainage logical fact finding abilities will be scammed by these folks. I venture that no one that completes my book will ever be scammed by a home drainage contractor wanna be. The educated homeowner will break that contractor bubba dude out in a sweat within minutes by asking him questions rapid fire one after the other while staying in control of the logical fact finding process and the truth. You can sort out the b.s. wanna be contractors easily. They stand out like they are wearing blaze orange. Their game is over when they sense your preparation.

The fact of the matter is that most of these types of sump pump pundits are rip off artists and should be avoided. They are quick to answer the phone call and get out to talk to the customer. They most often do no assessment from a conventional home drainage perspective but look for a place to easily install a channel drain and/or sump pump within the crawl space or basement. They realize if they are to float their scam that time is of the essence. They will need to get there quick, get bought into quick, and get out quick while they get the cash before someone real comes along.

Pure and simple, these suckers would rip off a 90 year old, and I have seen it happen.

These b.s. contractors do not understand the distinction between a hand excavated french drain and a machine dug ditch. Yet they use the example of the failure of some ditch referred to in the article as a french drain.

The character, ops. contractor gives notice of his ignorance in his article concerning the inadequacy of french drains, he does not discuss what his definition of a french drain really is except to let the pro in on what he thinks a french drain is by listening to the comments that installers can use gravel, road cloth, a trencher, etc. Obvious to the trained professional is the blatant weak logic of a rip off artist wanting a check at any cost.

The battle rages between these rip off sump pump artists. Long, long before any one of those sump pump characters even was around or whose fore-fathers who did not have electricity to power a sump pump some guy was figuring how to get sewage away from the village and drinking water to it with aquaducts. French drains were working for civilizations just like they still do from America to Africa.

A hand excavated aquaduct with an engineered grade is the beginning of a hand excavated french drain installation. If you start excavating around the perimeter walls and around the foundation spot footings within your crawl space, or cutting up your basement floor prior to stopping the groundwater from coming into the basement with hand excavated french drains you can expect negative results and more groundwater than before causing more damage than before.

Watch out for anyone, presumably contractors, asking for up front fees no matter how probable it sounds. I advise homeowners to never pay for services up front with respect to initial home drainage evaluations. These guys, many of whom only install sump pumps, are about to state the obvious to an uninformed homeowner who just needs help and take off with their money without telling the homeowners anything of substance or providing a solution to the groundwater problem what so ever. Just more wasted time and precious money. What? Wasted money? Come on now people, this does not need to happen at all.

A desire to study and get in control of the fact finding and solution action priorities is a must for understanding any home drainage groundwater problem and for the homeowner or prospective purchaser to establish a basis for effecting a solution to the home drainage problem and to understand prior to that why it should or should not be used in that particular case and it’s chances for success given many variables present at times.

Avoid sump pump operators who preach that french drains are not the answer and sump pumps are. What a preposterous statement.

Many of these sump pump installer guys make alot of money while never solving one problem and are big rip off artists. They love to talk about just channeling some groundwater in a crude french drain to the side of your home and they say they will vent it into the rain drain discharge where your downspouts vent. This will clog your rain drain discharges and cost you more money and problems in the future while it will work marginally and silt in the drain as well as overflow next to the side of the foundation always keeping it wet, just what you don’t want.
The flim flam man many time damages the home from the inside of the crawl space up towards the inside of the home as they do there work, yeh work, in the crawl space, and as a matter of fact leave groundwater standing within the sump enclosure itself all the time as it never pumps it all out, promoting moisture and mold within the crawl space as well as a noisy pump going off under your bedroom floor just to add insult to injury.

The presence of some original groundwater is all this type of contractor needs to start the chain of deception by telling the homeowner that they are destined to always have groundwater below grade from springs or underground rivers. Yeh right. I’ll bet the steelhead are running hot down there too. These slicky boy contractor types just crack me up.

Stories of underground rivers and springs are as essential to this dudes audience captivation as the guy who is showing you the pictures he took of bigfoot somewhere in Oregon no less to substantiate his evidence for the existence of the big white guy. These contractor sump pump dudes are to be watched like a hawk from my experience. Trust them not.

There is a time and a place for the installation of a sump pump, in the right place and plumbed the correct way; and hand excavated french drains are not the default answer to all home drainage problems either.

Get the advice of a licensed, bonded and insured contractor in your area that specializes in home drainage and “green” groundwater removal methods, not a sump pump installer. Study this website and get up to speed to protect your money, home and health from home groundwater problems.

So expert, why don’t you just answer the question? Right? Bust these guys wide open and send them packing looking for easier prey. Don’t fall for the flim flam home drainage sump pump man. Empower yourself with experience and common sense fact finding abilities yourself and you will not have those sump pump characters hanging around for long.

So don’t pay up front, ask questions that show your preconceived opinions and home drainage knowledge level and put that dude on the defensive right out of the gate. Don’t even let him have one minute alone to get himself pumped. Start with your list of questions about his methods, your knowledge about french drains. Ask him how a sump pump installation will do any good for you the customer with a desire to stop the groundwater from entering below grade into your crawl space or basement, when in fact a sump pump will never stop any groundwater from coming into your crawl space. It is a last recourse and not at great one at that even when used well.

Even the sump pumps most commonly installed on the exterior of the home are to close to the foundation by code, 10 feet usually, and too deep to solve any problem. They look like they are pumpin groundwater from the lower level but they are just pumping surface groundwater that is being vented to recycle most often near their outside foundation sump well which literally recycles the groundwater. From the novice perspective this guy was right however you are always going to have groundwater, mostly thanks to him.

Read this web site often and target articles on home buyers checklists, buying a home without home drainage problems, and how to perform home buyers due diligence to protect yourself from buying a home with a groundwater home drainage problem. Learn how if you do want the home with a drainage problem you can solve the home groundwater problem, usually in the basement or crawl space, and close the escrow in a timely manner before you lose your home transaction. It is all in this website.

This applies to both sellers and buyers of real estate subject to home drainage problems, as well as all realtors, lenders and anyone dealing with understanding or being responsible for solving home drainage problems.

]]> http://aaahomedrainage.com/archives/380/feed 0 http://aaahomedrainage.com/archives/317 http://aaahomedrainage.com/archives/317#comments Mon, 23 Jun 2008 00:44:01 +0000 DL http://aaahomedrainage.com/archives/317 Crawlspace french drains and sump pumps are seldom required and are always a last resort and not a first home drainage solution plan. Groundwater that enters below grade into basements and crawlspaces must be collected and vented on the outside of the building with hand excavated french drains in order to stop the groundwater saturation and hydrostatic pressure that causes the leaking.

If you do not have properly installed hand excavated french drains and rain drain discharges on the outside of the home, you are advised to install these systems properly prior to consideration of any crawlspace or basement french drain groundwater collection system, which is usually installed in conjunction with a sump pump to evacuate the groundwater.

Well folks, that is the laundry list of what not to do or buy into with respect to sound home drainage solutions and expectations. I hope this will raise your groundwater removal consciousness to the level that you will understand the terminology, scams, eventualities, possibilities, pitfalls, persuasions, and motivations behind every home drainage pitch and proposed technology. Learn to see a bear behind every tree, and you will be better prepared to ask questions of home drainage contractors and have the ability to undermine their shallow tactics based on greed and the need to make easy money at your expense.
The hand excavated french drain is installed about 18″ from the foundation, it is approximately 12″ in width, and contains a 3″ perforated pipe, weed cloth about 4 inches from the top layer of the rock in the hand excavated french drain, and a completely clean engineered grade of 2″ per 10 lineal feet, with a compacted grade splash block away from the exterior foundation wall.

If you are not approaching your groundwater problem from the correct perspective, you will not achieve professional results.

Crawlspace and basement groundwater problem areas with home drainage systems installed are limited in their scope of effectiveness, with respect to the extended length and the shallow depth required for any french drain installed in a basment or crawlspace.

The engineering does not work well. You can get deeper, and collect more groundwater on the outside of the foundation than in any below grade area such as a crawlspace or basement, and that cuts off the groundwater before it can saturate below grade and cause leaking.

In addition, some groundwater is always soaking from sump pump wells into the soil within your crawlspace, or sitting in them as the sump pump never pumps out all the groundwater.

This creates added moisture and mold in your crawlspace. The measured utility value in a crawlspace or basement french drain system is low, compared to hand excavated french drains, properly installed and engineered on the outside of the foundation.

Does the contended spring run year round, or does it show up when the rains come hard after a few days?

If you can go in the crawlspace or basement and see the spring running in the hot parts of July and August when we have had no hard rain for sometime, you may indeed have what you could call an underground spring.

That completes the list of the most common home drainage ploys and proposed concepts advanced by contractors or scam artists, that I feel are most often misunderstood, misrepresented, undefined, and often cause homeowners to lose money, home equity, patience, and sleep in their quest for a solution to their home drainage groundwater problem.

Thanks for reading along. See you down the road in future e-books on home drainage and groundwater removal.

]]> http://aaahomedrainage.com/archives/317/feed 0 http://aaahomedrainage.com/archives/341 http://aaahomedrainage.com/archives/341#comments Tue, 17 Jun 2008 22:43:59 +0000 DL http://aaahomedrainage.com/archives/341 Exterior sump pump installations can be the answer for homes that need to move lots of groundwater quickly. The premise of necessity in this case is to pump the groundwater because the amount of groundwater to deal with exceeds the ability of a conventional hand excavated drywell to perk the groundwater into the ground.

You may find while hand excavating your drywell that lots of groundwater is held in the area the drywell needs of go. In that case, assuming you are not below grade to the flood zone and just pumping the river itself, use a hand held sump pump attached to a hose that can remove the groundwater as you excavate deeper to a depth of around 4 feet.

When you have reached the depth required, fill around the concrete cylinder, which are actually tiles, with 6″ river rock after placing a concrete cylinder on a 6″ deep rock base at the bottom. This will draw groundwater through the rock and clean it prior to pumping it out. The groundwater level in the hollow center of the sump well will rise at the same level as the outside of the cylinders.

Level the cylinders, and install them by placing river rock around them to the top.

Build up your cylinders to within 1″ of the grade level after mounting your sump pump inside the concrete “tiles” which look like cylinders.

Plumb the sump pump with 1 1/2″ abs pipe and vent to a daylighted vent, perhaps at the street.

Put a top on the installation also made of concrete, and provide underground electric power to the sump well. Install an all weather extension cord in a conduit of 3″ ads solid pipe, or 2″ pvc pipe, and plug it in to an all weather gfci plug recepticle with a weather head, at the side of the home. Under an overhang or patio cover is a nice place for this power source.

These sump pumps can be hardwired if you prefer. Note however that if the sump pump goes out, your costs to replace the sump pump will skyrocket.

Roll up the remaining sump pump cord and place it about 8″ under the top layer of rock surrounding the sump well. If a hand excavated french drain slopes to the sump well, place weed cloth over the 3/4″-1 1/2″ river rock and top it off with rock around the sump well, and over the hand excavated french drain.

]]> http://aaahomedrainage.com/archives/341/feed 0 http://aaahomedrainage.com/archives/226 http://aaahomedrainage.com/archives/226#comments Mon, 10 Mar 2008 19:40:50 +0000 DL http://aaahomedrainage.com/archives/226 The fact of the matter is that most homeowners are confused about what home drainage science really is. So many homeowners get taken financially and functionally with respect to home drainage.

Many contractors, have for years lead a campaign to convince homeowners that a ditch witch dug trench, with little to no grade, can become a home drainage solution, and that they are drainage contractors.

A decision by the homeowner to use a machine to attempt home drainage and groundwater removal is a major mistake that will cause more damage to the home or landscape.

Landscapers, gardeners and irrigation contractors all seem to have gotten on the band wagon bidding home drainage work and machine dug french drains specifically because there is lots of this work out there.

The big profit enterprise they like to promote is sump pumps. Sump pump installation, prior to the proper installation of hand excavated french drains, is the tail wagging the dog. You are throwing away your money.

Most all of these characters know nothing more about home drainage science than they can assume from shopping home depot. Watch out folks. These poorly educated, to outright con men, will take your cash and leave you with a worse home drainage problem than you had to begin with.

Unlike landscape design or other specific construction pursuits, drainage contractors do not have a standard school of certification with respect to home drainage. Drainage contractors are therefore defined by success. The important thing to discover is the use of time tested old world science, ie. hand excavated french drains, and the acknowledged referral base with respect to the successes that they have had solving home drainage problems. That is a more reliable yardstick for the value of a drainage contractor and mason.

I am not saying that you cannot find a school to learn about home drainage, but the subject is as vast as the ocean.

There are industrial, commercial, institutional, public service and sewer system based applications, land drainage, agricultural, home groundwater removal, and many other divisions of education and actually engineering.

The home groundwater removal aspect however has not been fragmented off the entire subject to provide enough people a yardstick for what actually works. Many of us drainage contractors laugh at the information that is even promoted and taught about home drainage.

It is amazing that education on this subject trails actual experience by such a large margin. The personal experience of those of us drainage contractors that have risen to the top of our game, so to speak, within the body of home drainage knowledge, advocate with a passion, hand excavated french drains.

Working the home drainage problems evidenced within crawlspaces and basements from the outside in, by capturing groundwater while it is on the surface first, rather than trying to pump it first in the crawlspace or basement is the most important concept to learn.

When you do not install hand excavated french drains and simply let the rainwater saturate the foundation area, you are doing things backward. Naturally, it will seem like a sump pump is required if you approach it backward like that because after all, there is always groundwater there, and always something to pump.

Unlike a plumber or electrician, a top notch home drainage professional will likely not have a specific home drainage certification in engineering, although they will have extensive engineering experience.

He, or she, will have a documented long list of former customers who will answer calls for them all day long on a referral basis because the customer feels the need to connect other customers to a great drainage contractor because of their experience with the success of groundwater removal with respect to their property, and what it has meant to the health of their home.

Documented experience is the real test of value with respect to ability. Experience is most important, and a documented public support for the drainage contractor, and hand excavated french drains, should be the focus, not irrigation, gardening or landscaping experience referral based customers. Cosmetic home drainage does include some landscaping and irrigation skills, but the other contractors miss the engineering specific for hand excavated french drains. This is the only yardstick for groundwater removal success, and the value of a drainage contractor.

]]> http://aaahomedrainage.com/archives/226/feed 0 http://aaahomedrainage.com/archives/160 http://aaahomedrainage.com/archives/160#comments Wed, 16 Jan 2008 10:18:03 +0000 DL http://aaahomedrainage.com/archives/160 The use of a hand excavated drywell is one of the oldest forms of groundwater venting. Groundwater drainage. The same science that explains why a septic tank works, also applies to a drywell. The concept is called “perk” technology.

The hand excavated drywell stores up groundwater and/or roof water from the rain drain discharges and creates hydrostatic pressure by the weight of the groundwater or roof water from the rain drain discharges and french drains, applying hydrostatic pressure to the bottom of the hand excavated drywell.

Cracks form on the bottom of the drywell as groundwater is soaked into the ground. When a drywell is hand excavated, it is free of all loose dirt, which has a tendency to fill in cracks made on the bottom of the drywell when water soaks out, or “perks”. As the drywell becomes full of water and periodically dries out, those cracks enlarge, and the next amount of groundwater stored in the drywell soaks out quicker than the first groundwater did.

When the amount of groundwater being collected in the drywell is likely to exceed the size of the drywell until it becomes broken in and the cracks on the bottom of the drywell are formed, an overflow french drain is sometimes the best idea. The overflow functions like the leach field in a septic system that distributes groundwater from a full septic tank, out to a system of perforated pipes not far underground so the water can be soaked into the ground in a new location. This is also called a drain field.

Most areas do “perk”. Some building sites perk faster than others.

Many older homes now updating to new rain drain discharge venting systems and the installation of hand excavated french drains, were built in the 1900-1950 era. Many of those neighborhoods did not have a sanitary sewer system at that time. They were given a building permit subject to a satisfactory “perk” test, just like todays practice of making new construction in rural or urban areas without sewer go through the same “perk” test.

A large hole is dug with a backhoe about the size of the average drywell or larger, and the hole is filled with water. The sanitary inspector visits the site in 2-3 weeks after the hole is filled with water. If the water is gone, or has substantially drained out through the earth, the permit is issued for a standard septic system with a drain field. If there is a problem with the site “perking”, the building permit is denied, or a sand filter septic system is mandated. The sand filter system involves an extra sand septic tank installation for sand filtering the septic overflow water prior to venting it back to the earth through a drain field.

Since most older homes once were approved for, and used, a standard septic system for their household sewage and roof water disposal, it is logical to assume that these neighborhoods still “perk” today, and that these sites are logical candidates for the use of a drywell. As a practical matter, the sites that do not “perk” today, are likely the sites that never perked. Which means the home would not have been built on that site to begin with.

Sometimes a sump well with a sump pump wired in the exterior drywell is necessary due to rock formations or areas that are in flood planes. The sites in flood planes are not likely to have a home constructed there at all however. Building permits are almost never issued for such sites.

To make a long story short, your building site is likely to perk. If the development is new, the home is on sewer naturally, and if for some geological reason it does not perk, a daylighted vent for groundwater can be used if the site has a slope that works to gravity flow groundwater away from the home.

The daylighted vent approval is subject to the groundwater vented away from the home not flooding a neighbors home site and creating problems for them.

Hand excavated french drains and hand excavated drywells are clean of all debris and loose dirt. Hand excavated drywells last much longer, and work much better, than machine dug drywells and french drain imitations.

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