French Drain Installation in Rock Hill, SC

Drainage problems in your yard can lead to pooling, mold or water damage in or around your home. Luckily, you can avoid these problems by installing a French drain. A French drain is a trench filled with a perforated pipe and gravel that allows water to drain naturally from your yard. Depending on the size of your yard and the scale of your drainage issue, Advanced Property Services can create the drain system needed for your lawn.

French drains serve to collect and remove groundwater that would otherwise cause a problem. They’re often used along driveways, in damp areas of a lawn, and around house foundations to help keep the basement or crawlspace dry.

Draining Foundations

Every new house has some version of a French drain at the bottom of the foundation. Where the lot has enough slope and size for a drain to run downhill from the foundation to daylight, most builders prefer to install the drainage outside the footings.

In many cases, older homes with foundation water issues lack a French drain at the footing level. They can be added and can make all the difference. This can be a very involved task that means digging all the way down to the footings—a job for a pro.

French Drain in a Yard

Sometimes a section of the lawn will remain too wet to mow until well into the spring, or a gravel driveway will develop muddy areas. Installing a French drain on the uphill edge of these areas is often all that’s needed. In this circumstance, the French drain is frequently called a curtain drain.
Depending on the area to be drained, the trench can be dug by hand, with a trenching machine, or with a backhoe. The depth of the trench depends on the depth of the water table and the topography—the bottom of the trench needs to remain higher than its downslope outlet.

In some cases, it will be necessary to have an Engineer design the system. In other cases, digging down a couple of feet and sloping the bottom of the trench is all that’s called for.

The downhill side of a curtain drain’s trench can be lined with heavy-duty plastic sheeting prior to backfill to create a dam and force more water into the drain. The trench will be filled to within six inches of grade with crushed stone, and the filter fabric folded over the top.

Native soil covers the fabric, and the grass is planted atop that. Along driveways, it’s common to fill the top of the trench with larger stone—oftentimes decorative river rock—that helps to drain surface water, too.

Benefits of a French Drain

• French drains collect unwanted surface water, preventing flooding of lawns, patios, walkways, and drives.
• French drains divert groundwater, drying lawns and foundations.
• They are simplest to build during the construction of a house but can be added later.
• Little to no maintenance is required.

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