Installing a French Drain Between Houses

There is a storm drain at the other end of this french drain channel. We are working to help the water evacuate quickly from this clay pan. It has been saturating the ground here and making it difficult to maintain the lot and difficult for the children and pets to play.

Between these two houses, there are 7 feet to the property line in this subdivision. All the roof water is just laying on the clay plan between the houses. This french drain is going to move the water quickly so it’s not saturating the subsoil.

We took this downspout to the trench so the water will go through the pop-up emitter and run right into the stone of the french drain system. You can see that we put the pop-up through the filter fabric, it’s going to sit above the sod so any debris that comes through the downspout will wash out into the grass instead of the french drain. This is the proper way to bring a downspout to a french drain so the pipe does not plug.

When we removed the sod, we took 2 and a half inches of root. We are going to lay that over the filter fabric to finish the system. It’s going to be a fully contained, maintenance-free french drain.