Down spout drain tile and a frech drain

I have two down spouts on a side of my house I am going to rent a trencher and bury 4" solid (no holes) drain tile. But also on the same side of the house I really have a need for a french drain or two. This side of the house drains alot of water from the surrounding area and french drain would be perfect to slow and divert the runnof.

What I was thinking was to put 2-3 inches of 1" clean in the bottom of the trench, then lay the solid drain tile for the down spouts, then put another 4-6 inches of 1" clean on top.

Is there any reascon this wouldn't work? I cant imagine that the drain tile would work its way backup, would it?

-dave

I'm assuming the 4" solid drain tile is taking your downspout water to daylight. Correct? If it's running to daylight, the only way it would backup is if there is an obstruction that allows water to "move back uphill". Why are you renting a trencher? How deep ard how far are you running it? If the drain tile is non-perforated, can't see the need for the gravel fill myself. I've only used pea gravel fill around fabric covered perforated drain tile. If you're thinking of NOT running the tile to daylight, but ending it in the gravel filled trench, I can imagine a REAL heavy downpour causing a backup, which usually will come out the joints of the downspouts, close to the house where you don't want it. Just depends on how much of a restriction the gravel will cause. I've had this happen in the ditch along my driveway. I put it in some 1" CC at the entrance to a drain tile (going about 4 ft upstream into the ditch) to keep the debris from plugging up the tile at the point where the ditch fed into it. The drain tile continues underground about 150' to a creek. There is a difference in the ditch "time to empty" with and without the 1" gravel. I've also replaced sections of the black perf drain tile with pvc in some other areas along the driveway because it just kept getting clogged with sand. Also added catch basins to trap the silt/sand for cleaning. I keep tweaking the system to avoid the "lake" I had at a low area on the property at the top of the driveway. Ultimate goal is a maintenance free drainage system.

For the french drain Have you considered moving it well away from the house and make it reasonably deep with perforated pipe on the bottom that goes to daylight? [img]/forums/images/icons/grin.gif[/img] [img]/forums/images/icons/grin.gif[/img]

Picture?

Egon [img]/forums/images/icons/grin.gif[/img]

My thought was I need to bury my drain tile for my two down spouts. Both would drain to daylight way out in the woods.
Also on the same side of the house I have a lot of run-off that is washing out my grass, so I was thinking I might dig a couple of frech drains at an angle from the water flow that would both divert water away from my house and remove the volume & velocity of water so my yard doesnt wash out.

So my though was why couldnt I lay my solid drain tile in my frech drains? My plan was to divert water to the same are a for both places, and aslong as I had gravel both above and below my gutter drain tile, the two systems should work fine indepenantly of each other.

-dave

So you just want to use the drain trench to hide the drain tile pipe, right? Sounds like it would work, but why try and make them independent if they both go to the same place? Maybe just put perf tile in the drain trench to help provide a less restricted path through the gravel (surface water would join downspout water)