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French Drains

French Drain Contractor Serving All of The San Francisco Bay Area

Drainage Contractor San Francisco Bay Area

Drainage Problems ? We Install All Types of Drainage Systems To Solve Your Water Problems. French Drain Experts

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Golden Gate Enterprises, Inc. can design and install drainage systems to protect your home. If you have standing water or flooding around your yard, house, foundation, or basement, we can help. Call us today for a free estimate and consultation at 510-885-0197. French drains can solve many water issues . Often we combine french drains with the installation of a sump pump to evacuate the water. As a very experienced general contractor, we bring a great deal of expertise to drainage, water management problems, and french drain installation.

French Drains

A French drain, drain tile, perimeter drain or land drain is a ditch covered with gravel or rock that redirects surface and ground water away from an area. A French drain can have hollow pipes along the bottom (see images) to quickly vent water that seeps down through the upper gravel or rock. French drains are common drainage systems, primarily used to prevent ground and surface water from penetrating or damaging building foundations. Alternatively, the French drain technique may be used to distribute water, such as that which flows from the outlet of a typical septic tank sewage treatment system. French drains are also used behind retaining walls to relieve ground water pressure.

History and Construction

A diagram of a French Drain

The earliest forms of French drains were simple ditches, pitched from a high area to a lower one and filled with gravel. These were described and popularized by Henry French (1813-1885) a lawyer and Assistant US Treasury Secretary of Concord, Massachusetts^[1] in his book Farm drainage.^[2] French’s own drains were made of sections of ordinary roofing tile, were laid with a 1/8″ gap left in between the sections to admit water. Later, specialised drain tiles were designed with perforations.

Ditches may be dug by hand or with a trencher. An inclination of 1 in 100 to 1 in 200 is typical.^[3] Lining the bottom of the ditch with clay or plastic pipe increases the volume of water that can flow through the drain. Modern French drain systems can be made with perforated pipe (weeping tile) surrounded by sand or gravel and geotextile or landscaping textile. Landscaping textiles are used to prevent migration of the drainage material as well as preventing dirt and roots from entering and clogging the drainage pipe. The perforated pipe provides a minor underground storage volume but the prime purpose is for the perforations to drain the area along the full length of the pipe and to discharge any surplus water at its end. The direction of percolation will depend on the relative conditions inside and outside the pipe.

French drains can lead to a downhill slope, or to dry wells , sump pumps, or rain gardens where the extra water is held and absorbed by plants, when city water systems, or other waste water areas cannot be used.

[edit] Sizing considerations

Cross-section view showing French drain with 2 underground pipes.

Depending on the expected level and volume of rain water or runoff, French drains can be widened, or also founded on 2 or 3 underground drain pipes. Multiple pipes also provide for redundancy, in case one pipe becomes overfilled or clogged by a rupture or defect in the piping. A pipe might become overfilled if it is on a side of the drain which receives a much larger volume of water, such as one pipe being closer to an uphill slope, or closer to a roofline that drips near the French drain. When a pipe becomes overfilled, water can seep, sideways, into a parallel pipe, as a form of load-balancing, so that neither pipe becomes slowed by air bubbles, as might happen in a full-pipe with no upper air space.

[edit] Foundation

French drains are often installed around a home foundation in two different ways:

Buried around the foundation wall on the external side of the foundation
Installed underneath the basement floor on the inside perimeter of the basement

In most homes, an external French drain or drain tile is installed around the foundation walls before the foundation soil is backfilled. It’s laid on the bottom of the excavated area, and a layer of stone is laid on top. In many cases, a filter fabric is then laid on top of the stone to keep fine sediments and particles from entering. Once the drain is installed, the area is backfilled and the system is left alone unless it clogs.

While an external French drain can operate for ten years or more without the need for maintenance, it’s prone to clogging without any warning and can eventually lead to a flooded basement. When there is no filter fiber, sediments can make their way through the stone as years pass and clog the drain, and when the filter fabric is present, that can instead clog with sediments. Also, a French drain that is not installed with a sump pump counts on gravity alone to drain foundation water, and if the house is not located on a hill or near a steep incline, finding this slope can be problematic.* Additionally, maintenance on an external French drain involves expensive exterior excavation, which includes removal of walkways, shrubberies, porches, gardens, and anything else along the perimeter.

Installing a French drain around the inside perimeter is most commonly done after the house has been built. Most commonly, this is done in response to a wet basement or right before performing a basement finishing. To install this kind of drain, the perimeter of the basement floor is jackhammered down to the footing and the cement is removed. A layer of stone is laid down, and the drain is laid on top of it. Water is collected from the basement wall floor joint as it enters, and a sump pump is installed to pump the water out of the house and away from the foundation.

Once completed, the area, save for a 2″ gap around the edge, is cemented over. This gap exists in order to allow water in from the basement walls. This can be installed very quickly- 1-2 days by an experienced crew. The system is easy to maintain once installed, and the sump pump will need annual maintenance to perform properly. An interior French drain is much less likely to clog than an exterior, partially due to the fact that it is not sitting underneath several feet of soil.

Interior French drain installation is an effective way to waterproof a basement but requires the use of a sump pump. Many contractors will install plastic sump pumps that can quickly break down or neglect to install a battery backup sump pump, making the basement vulnerable to flooding during power outages. Sump pumps should be installed with a battery backup system in a proper sump liner of 20 gallon size or larger to prevent the sump from having too little water and turning on and off continuously.

French drain has evolved significantly from its origins- starting off as a hand-dug ditch, moving on to ceramic tile, PVC pipe, and eventually to the new French drain innovations on the market like WaterGuard and Grate Channel. Each new system is able to address weaknesses of the old as the French drain continues to improve and evolve. For example, whereas Henry French used chippings of tree bark to provide anti-microbial properties, an anti-microbial additive can now be included in the material of the plastic channel.

Gallery

Beginning of French Drain.

French drain with Base Rock and Pipe.

Top view of French Drain.

Ok, now that you have read more about French Drains than most people want to know, give us a call to solve your water problems. We service the entire San Francisco Bay Area. Emergency Service Available

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With the heavy rainfall in the San Francisco Bay Area, drainage problems can be a major issue for your property. Ineffective drainage can create breeding grounds for mosquitoes and other dangerous insects, erode your landscaping, and even potentially damage your home! So if you’re experiencing a drainage problem in your property, call us today! Our expert drainage experience can help you resolve your yard’s water problems. Don’t let poor drainage wreak havoc on your home or landscaping: our professionals are here to help. We can help with any type of yard or landscaping drainage, foundation drainage, french drains, trench drains, and more.

French Drains:

drainage The installation of French Drains is ideal for specific situations such as diverting rainwater from house foundations and to reduce standing water in yards that tend to get and stay soggy. Golden Gate Enterprises, Inc. offers full french drain contracting services all around the San Francisco Bay Area.

Simply put, a French Drain is a series of ditches lined with rocks or gravel that is used to draw water away from an area. It is used to protect the foundation of a house from ground and surface water that does not drain properly on its own. Using the forces of gravity, French Drains are installed down from the area to be drained to an area that can support the redirected water.

In the San Francisco area, the combination of heavy rains and flat-hillside terrain creates the need for French Drains for many properties. Flooding often occurs when the top layer of soil, which contains air, becomes saturated with water. If the area is flat with nowhere to flow, it will stay in one spot for a long time until it can eventually drain. A French Drain allows the water and soil to move easily through the gravel and away from the problem area.