French Drain

bote110

Possible I may need a french drain . I just moved into our new build house on xmass eve and this last month we had a lot snow and rain .
Our lawn is not loam and seed yet and water is collecting along our drive way witch is gravel with some kind of base that we were told was going to harden over time, with so much water it soak it up like a sponge and made the driveway so soft that our cars would sink in a little about 1-3 inches .
How deep does a french drain has to be , was thinking along the drive way and cut across if I pave the drive way will it crush the pipe ?

joecaption

Got a picture of this driveway?
If it was built correctly you should not be having this issue.

Bondo

Ayuh,.... If the lawn areas aren't done, re-grade it to drain off the water....

AllanJ

Before installing a French drain, decide where (well away from the house) the water will be channeled to or pumped to.

Then create one or more temporary surface channels to see how well this works. For a gravel driveway the channel does not have to go across the driveway. The gravel itself is porous and water in the gravel will make its way to the channel if you selected a good location for the channel.

If the channel works in the way of carrying lots of water but the driveway is still squishy, you may install an underground pipe about 18 to 24 inches deep along that route. (Needs to be 36 inches deep for full protection against freezing.) A dry well with sump pump is needed if the pipe is buried so deep that it does not empty out at the far end by gravity flow. The pipe leading away from the driveway should be non-perforated.

If it is the base as opposed to the gravel of the driveway that is squishy then perforated pipes about 12 to 18 inches deep running at the sides of the driveway should help. They must be connected to the aforementioned or additional non-perforated pipe so water is taken someplace else.

Outdoors, draining on the surface of adequately graded land is better than underground pipes.

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