French Drain

With the weather being too nice to pass up manual labor, the wife had me outside. We were gonna do this last weekend but ironically it poured cats n dogs. We looked at renting a trench digger but in the end I decided that I still got what it takes to use post hole diggers.

River rocks show up on Wednesday.



Called in the reinforcements once I started gettin tired:

 

My God that looks like work for sure. Your helper sure is cute

 

Wasn't so bad but for the tree roots. Thank you. He's a handful

 

on including the "Cat Operator"

Memories in the Making

 

They are indeed. I treasure every moment.

 

How deep do you have to trench for those to be effective?

 

Not that deep. We are on a natural slope so all we are trying to do is steer the water away from our doorstep and front of house. We are at 6-8" down with the pipe a tad lower towards the end point to help with water flow.

 

Gotcha. I need to trench the back of our house, but first I have to bust up the collapsed patio and then fix the grade. It’s going to be a great summer

 

Collapsed patio?

I once stayed with some nice folks in KS and part of my thanks for letting me crash there was helping them collapse their storm cellar. Most of it was underground but it was entirely made of concrete and all we had was a sledgehammer a piece. I was lot younger then though...

Our backyard is gonna be a beast to tackle when it comes to French drain installation. We sit on two lots and the 2nd lot serves as our backyard. Erosion is a problem as we have trees galore and the shade from the canopy hinders grass growth. We plan to run a drain the length of the fence then dig a trench down the slope to lay pipe that will carry the water to the ditch alongside the road. I'll rent a trencher for that job most def.

 

Man, I don’t have the strength in my back to be busting concrete with a sledge hammer anymore. Sure that was fun in my 20’s but now… not so much. Honestly I’m pretty impressed you trenched that yourself.

 

If it's not too late, ditch that corrugated black pipe for some schedule 40 pvc and add a clean out. You'll never have to touch that drain again

 

Why the PVC? What makes it appreciably better?

 

I've watched a few PVC vs Perforated Corrugated piping comparisons it's pretty clear which one is more ideal. The wife is convinced as well so even if I were to change my mind, I'd have to change hers and, well, I'd have an easier time digging another trench with a garden shovel than tackle that.

 

Well done, you won't regret a FD, I did the same when I built this place in '06, set up the gutters to drain into the tile. the water is always long gone.

It's a good system.

 

The ribbing in corrugated pipe makes it susceptible to gathering debris and it's way thinner and prone to damage/collapse. But it's way cheaper and easier to lay.

 

Yeah I'd rather dig it up in a few years than argue with her.

 

Huh, I’ve said that before. Future me was very upset with past me every time I did.

 

Hey Mr. George! How much you pay for the new guy?!?? $20 bucks? No! Too much! That's too much money , he no good, he not a good operator

 

Haha! He came cheap just had to give him some juice and a bag of Cheetos.

 

*whistles* The King of French drains right there!

 

Update after rock delivery. We had .33 yds³ delivered then had to get 5 more ft³. The true achievement here is I got the 12 year old out doing physical labor.

 

After the storm last night, we decided to run over and get some stuff to continue work on the area in front of the French drain. As previously mentioned, there was a deck there and now it's just a dirt patch so the wife decided she wanted to turn it into a flower/plant patch.

Put the Tundra to work with about 1300 lbs of soil product. She had some squat but I put her in TH mode and we got it home easily enough. Even put the new mower trailer to work (it can hold up to 600lbs).




Hardest part was putting that damn liner in the ground (tree roots). So I let the wife do it while I took pics and drank beer. Kiddin.

 

Your Tundra laughed at the lil pee wee weight

 

Nice job

 

In TH mode I probably could've burned the 35s...and lose some load haha

 

Man… I remember towing horse trailers with an old Chevy 350 that had all of half the HP your tundra has. I don’t think it’s lacking in HP or TQ to tow or haul anything.

 

We towed cattle in a beat up rusted cow hauler (had painted rebar as slats on the sides and top) and my grandpa's '77 Chevy Suburban w/350 would heave that thing like it was a ship's anchor on land. Still got the job done!