French Drain + Gutter Drainage; Same trench?

bmoore2010

14 years ago

I'm going to be installing a French drain around much of the perimeter of the house shortly and would also like to bury my gutter drainage at the same time.

I understand not to dump my gutter runoff into the French drain pipes, but what I am curious about is can I utilize the same trench and "stack" the pipes?

So it would be, starting lowest to highest (excluding the fabrics)

1. Gravel

2. French pipe

3. Gravel

4. Gutter drainage (solid pipe)

5. Gravel

6. Topsoil

Or, is this a bad idea and will make the French drain less effective? In which case, I would need 2 parallel drain lines that I can "Y" together farther from the house.

I will be having a small backhoe doing the trenches, so it will not be much of an issue.

If they must be parallel, I would presume that the storm water drainage should be farther away from the foundation than the French drain? My plan was to have the French trench 4 feet from the foundation to drain a soggy yard as well as keep water from seeping into the basement.

Thanks for the help!

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Comments (4)

metaxa
13 years ago
By "French drain" I'm assuming you mean perimeter drain or foundation drain.

So...assuming I'm right in my assumption, that is what we do up here in one of the wettest climates around. Just be sure your top pipes (the rain leaders) are deep enough to allow someone to cultivate the beds. It passes code, just make sure you have the right pipe if you are going under a driveway.

Oh, and by "gravel" I hope you mean drain rock.
And by "French" pipe, I hope you aren't referring to that black corrugated stuff.

We use the same white (PVC, I think) pipe top and bottom, 4" for the foundation, 3" for the rain leaders.

Glue it all, slope it all and for goodness sakes wrap it all...I still see folks laying newspaper down
metaxa
13 years ago
Had a thought while driving down the highway, funny what we think of as we go along.

I wrote: "We use the same white (PVC, I think) pipe top and bottom, 4" for the foundation, 3" for the rain leaders."

Need to be certain you know this; you use perforated pipe for the perimeter drains and solid pipe for the rain leaders.

And remember, clean outs are your friend. Put them in and use them.
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Depends what you want to do. You can direct it to a planted bed, or to some type of reservoir (for use later on). If you just want to get rid of the water (God forbid), then run it far enough away from the house that gravity can carry it somewhere else, that is, to anywhere the land slopes. Be careful about this, though, because you will probably get some erosion. Another solution is to drain the water into a rectangular pit, say something four feet deep, two feet or so wide and four to six feet long. Fill the pit with pumice gravel (pumice will absorb and retain water.) Cover with mulch. You can even cover with sod. Plant some trees around the pit, and their roots will eventually grow into the pit where they will be provided with rainwater. Another possibility is to run your drain to a certain point, say 10 feet from the house, then bring it to the surface. From that point, lay some heavy plastic down, meandering it (as a brook or stream would do). Cover the plastic with small river gravel, and edge it with larger rocks. Plant grasses, irises, etc, along it to create a beautiful streambed. Run the streambed out to a garden, and let the water run into the earth there. Here is a link that might be useful: Desert Gardens
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I had the same problem - but I was on the other end. I bought a house where I was TOLD by the seller that there was a french drain in place between the neighbors house and the one I was buying. The first big rain proved that wrong. We don't have basements here in TX, so my house was flooded instead. 3 bedrooms and a bath on that side of the house had standing water. The next weekend, my husband and I put in a french drain system. In this pic you can see my neighbors house (the higher one), their retaining wall, the new drain (designed like a creek bed) and my house is on the other side of the dry creek bed. Under the rock is a trench with landscape fabric and drain pipe and more rocks. We've had some serious rain storms since I put it in and we have had absolutely no problems with it. It probably cost us about $300 in materials and a weekend worth of work, but we had no clue what we were doing. ;) You might consider doing something similar with your landscaping. I've seen others here in TX simply design a small trench to take gutter run-off to the street. think like an extended downspout.
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A larger picture of understanding of your "trench" would be needed on whether you should fill with gravel at all. If you are doing a french drain, gravel within the soil acts as a gutter; however, a pipe will move more water quicker. Or, if it is not a trench, a swale can suffice in moving surface water coming down the hill without the need for gravel fill in a swale. My personal opinion on the plastic pebbles: - it looks like pellet feed, so if exposed animals may ingest them - their shape won't allow them to compact well, so depending on what happens above the trench they may displace, or within the trench if not completely burrito wrapped - they are lighter than gravel so might migrate upwards over time - good gracious they are expensive - I have no qualms about using plastic underground, however something doesn't equate for me in introducing millions of loose plastic pieces into the soil (as opposed to a million loose pieces of natural gravel). I can't explain properly, but if they were a million little green army guys I would consider that ground tainted. In the same way I do not like those prefab corrugated pipes wrapped with styrofoam peanuts.
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bmoore2010
Original Author
13 years ago
Thanks for the reply.

Yes, by gravel I mean drainage rock.

Now for the pipe, I'm using a combination. PVC for the north side of the house, which will contain cleanouts and the rain leaders in the same trench. So perforated PVC for the "french" line and solid for the rain leaders.

On the south side, I am using the slotted black corrugated because it will be buried entirely and empty into a gravel bed. I went back and forth on this one but figured since it will be entirely burried, socked, and have landscape fabric around it, I would be safe going with the cheap (and easy) alternative. Any thoughts on that approach?
metaxa
13 years ago
I'd bury it all, why not?

The black, corrugated stuff works, it just collects debris. Rain washes granules off the roof, your gutters carry organic stuff down and all that catches in those ribs.

Drop a chunk of cement and some other construction rubble down a downspout, have your fabric allow a bit of fines to sift through and before you realize it it slows up enough to back up.

Then you have to power jet it or dig it all up and replace it.

I can see a production builder using it for cost reasons but we do a house every year and a half (new) and maybe reno one or two others in that time and if we have to do the drains we use PVC. Its done once and forget it.

I like the forget it part, especially if we retain the home and rent it out.

French Drain + Gutter Drainage; Same trench?

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French Drain + Gutter Drainage; Same trench?

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