# "Ghetto" mini french drain?



## maddog1 (Aug 21, 2012)

Before you try any of the stuff your asking about, have you investigated the possibility of diverting the water at the top of the driveway? That's where the problem starts from if I understand this. And if it's runoff from the main road & neighbors, you may have an argument here to get relief or help from the city-town-county or whoever maintains the roads at your location. 


I'm not sure about your posted solution. I would look to talk to two or three
foundation experts & commercial landscape contractors & get their opinions.


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## F250 (Feb 13, 2018)

I've never used the product linked below, but I've been fascinated by its design ever since I first saw it. Could be a potential for your situation?

https://www.homedepot.com/p/NDS-4-in-x-10-ft-Prefabricated-French-Drain-with-Pipe-EZ-0802F/202259347


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## Bud9051 (Nov 11, 2015)

Not sure what your frost depth is, there is Alaska and then there is Alaska, think southern coastal area. But in general any buried pipes will freeze and eventually break or at least freeze solid, not great for drainage. Here in Maine I always recommend surface drainage with a good slope. If it has to drain underground it has to go deep or have rigid foam installed above it.

What are your soil conditions, good drainage or solid as a rock?

Bud


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## Mystriss (Dec 26, 2018)

Yeah, we're rural and muni doesn't do jack for us since they annexed - other than double our property taxes every few years, of course. We can't even get a fire truck out here - we paid for it and staff the department via donations. Those urban jerks vote down everything we need/want so we have to pay out of pocket for even basic stuff like street lights and guardrails [/end rant]


Anyway, yeah we had seriously considered putting a drain grate at the top of the driveway here: 








but I guess there's some majorish issues with the idea; having to take a bump every time we come into the driveway is basically guaranteed to cause visitors to wipe out. There's a natural gas line on the right side of the driveway so we'd have to hand dig a bunch of the driveway. There's already a covert at the top of the driveway that we're (us nor a contractor) not allowed to mess with /at all/, on top of that it might be pointless after all that work due to the freeze problem with the drain grate/ditch idea - basically it, like the existing covert and ditch already do, will likely fill with snow and ice and the water will go right over the top of it. >.< The driveway folks we'd talked to about that and putting in a heated driveway said that we'd be better off doing some kind of drainage at the bottom of the driveway (mostly because of the natural gas line and the amount of money and/or work we'd have to pay to dig around it - plus the "it might freeze over" part. We can't have a heated driveway either >.<) 


I might be able to get some contractor folks to come have a look but I'm not hopeful it'll happen this year - everyone up here is booked solid because we had a 7.0 quake. I tried to get the moss removal folks to pound like four nails into some siding that had come loose during it last week - his crew up there isn't legally allowed to do it apparently, but he said he could get someone out here to do it "in the fall" lol


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## Bud9051 (Nov 11, 2015)

Pete, just advertising on that link

Bud


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## Mystriss (Dec 26, 2018)

F250 said:


> I've never used the product linked below, but I've been fascinated by its design ever since I first saw it. Could be a potential for your situation?
> 
> https://www.homedepot.com/p/NDS-4-in-x-10-ft-Prefabricated-French-Drain-with-Pipe-EZ-0802F/202259347


ooo I dig it, I'll see if they have any up here/if I can order it \o/


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## Nik333 (Mar 1, 2015)

I see a pre-fabricated French Drain.


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## Mystriss (Dec 26, 2018)

Bud9051 said:


> Not sure what your frost depth is, there is Alaska and then there is Alaska, think southern coastal area. But in general any buried pipes will freeze and eventually break or at least freeze solid, not great for drainage. Here in Maine I always recommend surface drainage with a good slope. If it has to drain underground it has to go deep or have rigid foam installed above it.
> 
> What are your soil conditions, good drainage or solid as a rock?
> 
> Bud


Well we've got rocks but it's drain-able soil down to about 8 foot before we hit bedrock. I believe the frost line is 6 foot (or at least that's what they recommend for buried supply lines,) but for like the drain on our sump pump it's only 2 foot. If my as-built is correct, our well line to the house is at 5 feet and it's never froze up. 

I did forget to mention that I was already planning to put heat tape in the french drain pipe anyway, we did that (and buried deeper) our sump drain pipe because it froze and burst right after we moved in (which we promptly the next summer crushed with dumptruck loads of gravel and top soil and then buried even deeper and inside a metal covert lol)


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## Bud9051 (Nov 11, 2015)

I got the drain this time. There must be a cookie on my computer that says "sucker" so they fed me the Memorial Day sales. If they only knew.

Bud


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## Mystriss (Dec 26, 2018)

Bud9051 said:


> I got the drain this time. There must be a cookie on my computer that says "sucker" so they fed me the Memorial Day sales. If they only knew.
> 
> Bud


I know this feel, we got "sucker"ed into 2 hours of looking at landscaping bricks just the other day. :vs_laugh:


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## F250 (Feb 13, 2018)

Here's a link to the manufacturer site.

https://www.ndspro.com/ezdrain-4-pack-8-x-10-with-4-pipe.html

I tried to dig up some reviews, and only found some landscaping companies who tout it quite highly due to reduced installation costs because of the lack of need for gravel. I don't know how well the drainage fabric and poly drainage lumps will avoid (over time) being packed with silt and organic soil residue just like a regular french drain, but perhaps its mesh is fine enough to avoid that service-limiting phenomena.


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## Mystriss (Dec 26, 2018)

F250 said:


> Here's a link to the manufacturer site.
> 
> https://www.ndspro.com/ezdrain-4-pack-8-x-10-with-4-pipe.html
> 
> I tried to dig up some reviews, and only found some landscaping companies who tout it quite highly due to reduced installation costs because of the lack of need for gravel. I don't know how well the drainage fabric and poly drainage lumps will avoid (over time) being packed with silt and organic soil residue just like a regular french drain, but perhaps its mesh is fine enough to avoid that service-limiting phenomena.


Awesome, I'll ask them about putting in a heat tape too. Their site says they sell it locally at a few places so I'll see about giving those folks a call for how it works as well. I don't think our dirt is that fine so I imagine it's not too much of an issue, the dirt seems to clump in palm sized chunks whenever we dig it (high water table thing maybe.) Either way, we could fill the entire thing in with gravel if we needed to - we'd just have to wait to get a foundation person out here to make sure that'd be structurally sound heh


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## maddog1 (Aug 21, 2012)

The ultimate solution---MOVE. That's what I did. Lived 69 years in New York. Finally wised up & got the hell out of there. There are two America's. The socialist state's & the capitalist states. Figure out which serves your needs & then jump.


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## DoomsDave (Dec 6, 2018)

@Mystriss, keep us apprized. Hope you can solve your problem. I've got a friend with a similar issue, in heavy clay soil. 

(Trying to get him to join us, but he's too old he says, and I says that doesn't stop most of us here!:devil3


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## Mystriss (Dec 26, 2018)

maddog1 said:


> The ultimate solution---MOVE. That's what I did. Lived 69 years in New York. Finally wised up & got the hell out of there. There are two America's. The socialist state's & the capitalist states. Figure out which serves your needs & then jump.


Dude... I live in Alaska, likely one of the most conservative states in the country :vs_laugh:


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## Mystriss (Dec 26, 2018)

DoomsDave said:


> @Mystriss, keep us apprized. Hope you can solve your problem. I've got a friend with a similar issue, in heavy clay soil.
> 
> (Trying to get him to join us, but he's too old he says, and I says that doesn't stop most of us here!:devil3


Tell him I says that we /want/ to hear the opinions of folks that've done stuffs over their lifetime!


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## maddog1 (Aug 21, 2012)

Mystriss said:


> Dude... I live in Alaska, likely one of the most conservative states in the country :vs_laugh:


I never said that your state was not conservative. But either way you at least deserve some attention to your problem. I assume you pay taxes up there. I'm not sure as to what "conservative" means to you. But down here when we hear your house members & reps. we laugh. Not picking on you! We all deserve attention for some problem solving, & we can never get it. Anyway, give it a little more time, don't worry, be happy. It will all be over in twelve years. 


Maybe you can get a news crew to look at your melting runoff problem & report it as global warming in the tundra. Hey- Any port in a storm will do!


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## NotYerUncleBob2 (Dec 29, 2017)

Yep, it's not a good situation to have your house at the bottom of a river. First and best option is always to divert the water from getting to your house rather than dealing with it once it's there. Maybe you'll need a combination of solutions that divert the bulk of the water from entering the driveway and then a method of dealing with what gets past it. 
Maybe a speed bump in your driveway would be enough? Don't laugh, a mellow rise that blocks the water, diverts it, and can still be plowed might be easier than digging trenches that have nowhere to send the water. 



maddog1 said:


> I never said that your state was not conservative. But either way you at least deserve some attention to your problem. I assume you pay taxes up there. I'm not sure as to what "conservative" means to you.


So...I thought conservatives wanted the dang ol' gubmint out of their bidniss? Or is it ok when it serves your personal needs? I'm confused.


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## DoomsDave (Dec 6, 2018)

NotYerUncleBob2 said:


> So...I thought conservatives wanted the dang ol' gubmint out of their bidniss? Or is it ok when it serves your personal needs? I'm confused.


You appear to understand perfectly!


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## 3onthetree (Dec 7, 2018)

A french drain is only the end-all when you have flat topography and nowhere for water to go. Here, installing a french drain right at the house/porch would be an inadequate solution and lost sweat equity. If you really want to solve the flow problem, you have to regrade. You don't want to allow the water to come all the way to the house and then deal with it. You want to attack it out away from the house. It's like letting Attila the Hun in behind the castle walls to fight them, instead of beyond the moat. 

It may be different in Alaska, but you can rent a Bobcat for about $250/day and a concrete saw for $60 around here. Poly pipe is about $1/ft, 3/4" washed gravel about $25/cuyd. Maybe $15 for 250' mason line, plastic line level, and a few 24" rebar stakes. Another couple hundred for pipe sleeve, unwoven geo-textile, and any decorative rock.

1. Measure your grade elevations with the mason line strung out, to see how much you'll dig and where to dump the spoils.
2. Create a swale in front of the tree that extends down past the other driveway to the low end of the lot. 
3. Regrade from the porch to slope down to this swale.
4. The french drain would be in the swale. Instead of soil, you can cover the top with river rock and some decorative large stones here and there and just leave it exposed.
5. If the asphalt drive can shed to the sides, you also may need a slight parallel swale to the street culvert on the fence side. I imagine the gas line is buried 6" or lower, so there should be room to regrade.
6. If the asphalt drive only sheds into the garage, cut a slice at the new swale line and continue the french drain/rock bed through it. I would think someone around there can weld up a "hoof grate" to install flush with the drive. No bumps for the tour bus.

Use poly or PVC solid perforated pipe. Holes should face down, but I like to put them at 4:30/7:30 to allow silt to wash away and easier to rod out. No need for a de-icing cable if pipe is solid, keeps good slope, and has a good swale and exposed rock above. 

Sump pump can also route to this rock bed, and you may need a culvert for the other driveway, but your spoils could help raise that drive if needed.


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## maddog1 (Aug 21, 2012)

NotYerUncleBob2 said:


> Yep, it's not a good situation to have your house at the bottom of a river. First and best option is always to divert the water from getting to your house rather than dealing with it once it's there. Maybe you'll need a combination of solutions that divert the bulk of the water from entering the driveway and then a method of dealing with what gets past it.
> Maybe a speed bump in your driveway would be enough? Don't laugh, a mellow rise that blocks the water, diverts it, and can still be plowed might be easier than digging trenches that have nowhere to send the water.
> 
> 
> ...


And here I always thought that Govt. had an obligation to assist its citizens when in need. Sometimes the assistance is of a personal nature, and sometimes the assistance benefits a group of citizens. And what makes you assume that I am a conservative. You don't know a gosh darn thing about me. You should not make assumptions. I'm sorry your confused. You should have paid more attention to the OP's problem & the efforts he is trying to make to solve it. I suggested he move was simply meant as a joke. Oh sorry-I forgot, joking is now against the law too.


It has nothing to do with anyone's political bent. It has everything to do with fixing a problem. Let me ask this. When your in need of a doctor, lawyer, hospital, ambulance & you seek their assistance, do you first ask & analyze their political affiliations? Or do you throw all that stupidity away & just get the assistance you need which could mean saving your life.


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## Mystriss (Dec 26, 2018)

Yeah I know Murkowski is a RINO - all the capitalists up here are just "too busy" making money to pay all that much attention to more than the R at the end of the name. Those who do pay attention yell and scream all the time, but the sound of cash registers is pretty deafening up here. Here's the most recent polls, on just has to look at her rating with our 30k democrats and it's pretty damned obvious http://mustreadalaska.com/poll-murkowski-sullivan-up-voters/ (- none are mine but check out the comments there.) Rumor is she's not going to run again in 22... I guess I figure it could be worse, she's not a raving lunatic type RINO, more of a sell out to native corporations, teachers unions, and the oil companies type RINO (establishment RINO heh.)


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## NotYerUncleBob2 (Dec 29, 2017)

maddog1 said:


> ...You don't know a gosh darn thing about me. ...I suggested he move was simply meant as a joke. Oh sorry-I forgot, joking is now against the law too.


...a sense of humor must be against the law too. 
And after a bunch of posts extolling the virtues of whose state is more conservative, apologies if I lumped you in with that group. It sure seemed like that's what you were implying with the joke.


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## NotYerUncleBob2 (Dec 29, 2017)

3onthetree said:


> ...It's like letting Attila the Hun in behind the castle walls to fight them, instead of beyond the moat.


_That's it!!_ Dig a moat and build a drawbridge!

...but seriously, 3onthetree's advice is probably what you want to do here.


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## Mystriss (Dec 26, 2018)

To the thread subject though, it's sounding like I'm going to need to contact an expert here. This was just a quick and dirty fix to alleviate the problem for a couple years. If a french drain won't really help on non-flat terrain, then we're in trouble in the long run.

We're planning an addition in front of the house and I'd planned to membrane the new foundation and french drain across the front to deal with with the melt water run off problem. Thing is the driveway is kind of cut through a hill; both sides of the driveway are about a foot or so higher in the wild areas at the end . Which mean's any 'swell' we put in "before it got to the house" would have to drain out basically at the base of my favorite blue spruce, which would kill it


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## DoomsDave (Dec 6, 2018)

Mystriss said:


> To the thread subject though, it's sounding like I'm going to need to contact an expert here. This was just a quick and dirty fix to alleviate the problem for a couple years. If a french drain won't really help on non-flat terrain, then we're in trouble in the long run.
> 
> We're planning an addition in front of the house and I'd planned to membrane the new foundation and french drain across the front to deal with with the melt water run off problem. Thing is the driveway is kind of cut through a hill; both sides of the driveway are about a foot or so higher in the wild areas at the end . Which mean's any 'swell' we put in "before it got to the house" would have to drain out basically at the base of my favorite blue spruce, which would kill it


MA'AM!

GET THEE A LOCAL ON-SITE EXPERT

:vs_cool::vs_cool::vs_cool::vs_cool:


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## ron45 (Feb 25, 2014)

Digging ditches on both sides of the road helps.

Then doing minor adjustments to your property would settle the problem.

Can't see your property so that remains to be a mystery.


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## Mystriss (Dec 26, 2018)

ron45 said:


> Digging ditches on both sides of the road helps.
> 
> Then doing minor adjustments to your property would settle the problem.
> 
> Can't see your property so that remains to be a mystery.


There's already idk 3-4 foot deep ditches down both sides of the road - that's where the 100+" of snow off the road goes - and why I have a front property easement and can't mess with the covert under the driveways - that stuff's all the cities.

They'll let me redo the mailbox (ours and the neighbors) next to the second driveway as long as we don't obstruct water flow down the ditch, but we're not allowed to /touch/ the covert under the MAIN driveway... Yeah, you heard me, we can mess around with the second driveway covert all we want, but not the main driveways... Government stupidity is super annoying.


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## DoomsDave (Dec 6, 2018)

@Mystriss, sounds like your city is a bit dysfunctional, ma'am.

Maybe get active in politics?


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## Mystriss (Dec 26, 2018)

DoomsDave said:


> @Mystriss, sounds like your city is a bit dysfunctional, ma'am.
> 
> Maybe get active in politics?


Oh, they function just fine... for Anchorage. I don't live in Anchorage though, I live in one of the six cities/towns that was annexed by Anchorage. So I'm in a city that just pays high property taxes so that Anchorage residents can vote no on everything we need - from schools to roads to firemen/police.

We're campaigning to break away with the other five cities right now :biggrin2:


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## DoomsDave (Dec 6, 2018)

Mystriss said:


> Oh, they function just fine... for Anchorage. I don't live in Anchorage though, I live in one of the six cities/towns that was annexed by Anchorage. So I'm in a city that just pays high property taxes so that Anchorage residents can vote no on everything we need - from schools to roads to firemen/police.
> 
> We're campaigning to break away with the other five cities right now :biggrin2:


Get involved, sounds like you are!


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## ron45 (Feb 25, 2014)

Can you get the ditches dug deeper and a drainage pond added.?

A swale in the yard and speed bump in the drive will direct water.

Curbs along drives help.

Are you in a known flood zone.?


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## Mystriss (Dec 26, 2018)

ron45 said:


> Can you get the ditches dug deeper and a drainage pond added.?
> 
> A swale in the yard and speed bump in the drive will direct water.
> 
> ...


High water table as a granite shelf/slab is only 20ish' down, but not a flood zone. I just have the misfortune to have a flatish lot at the bottom of a hill.

The ditches are a good 4' deep already and they handle the load fine, actually my lots existing 'drainage' handles the rain okay too. The problem is the average 100" of snow fills the ditches up, gets hard packed through the winter and the melt off can't drill through it into ditches, coverts, etc. and comes down the driveway.

I'm thinking about doing a swell on the driveway that'll drain 'under' the wild area up front (about 15' back from the road) We've been planning to put in lights and power up along that front line so it wouldn't be too much more work to dig a bit further and put in a pipe/covert with vertical facing inlets that we could keep clear of snow all winter. Problem is I can't find a single landscaping company to come talk over a plan. 

Everyone up here is booked solid three times over trying to repair earthquake damage on top of the usually hectic summer season - there's folks up here living in hotels who can't even get on the schedule to fix their houses until next summer - so I might have to table even getting a plan this season. Having the same problem with finding a general contractor to come look over our addition ideas, even the moss removal folks are a month out on appointments, and my hopes for at least redoing the roof and gutters on the shop are completely blown out of the water already. >.<


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## snic (Sep 16, 2018)

So, regarding those prefab French drains...

https://www.homedepot.com/p/NDS-4-in-x-10-ft-Prefabricated-French-Drain-with-Pipe-EZ-0802F/202259347

...I installed some of these at the edge of my property. My neighbor's lot is higher than mine, and water was washing away the new soil I had put down to fill in low spots. So I put these in and channeled the water to a dry well. The system works beautifully. Underscoring what others wrote above, you want to put in the drains UPHILL from where the problem is, and channel the water AWAY from the low spot where it's pooling or threatening the foundation.

Regarding the issue with snowmelt on your driveway: It sounds like maybe you could solve the problem by installing trench drains...

https://www.ndspro.com/products/drainage/channel-and-trench-drains.html

...basically, cut into the asphalt or concrete (or gravel?) and stick one of these in, and direct the water to somewhere where it won't threaten the house. Maybe a long pipe going AROUND the house and ending downhill from it? Anyway, I assume you plow the driveway in winter, so these drains wouldn't be covered in snow, and would therefore catch any snowmelt that sheets down the driveway. What I'm not sure about is whether you'd get freezing inside - but I think you already have an idea of how to deal with that.


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## Mystriss (Dec 26, 2018)

snic said:


> So, regarding those prefab French drains...
> 
> https://www.homedepot.com/p/NDS-4-in-x-10-ft-Prefabricated-French-Drain-with-Pipe-EZ-0802F/202259347
> 
> ...


Trench drain! Yeah that's what I was pondering putting at the top of the driveway. We'd have to put in a heat tape to keep it from freezing up, but as long as we remember to unplug the thing in the summer it's not too expensive to run.

I've been pondering the prefab french drain thing a bit more today. We're about due to redo our entire yard as the tree roots are starting to show on the spruces, was thinking I could maybe do the french drain across the front yard and direct all the water into the side lot which is mostly scrub brush that I don't care about killing heh


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## snic (Sep 16, 2018)

As long as the side lot slopes away from the house, it should work. Maybe put in a dry well (conventional or engineered - NDS also has a nice 50 gallon dry well), and/or a "leach field" - basically a few dozen feet of french drain where you want the water to end up. I think the idea is that this helps the soil to absorb it, whereas if you just end the drain somewhere, heavy water flow would result in a swamp or a pond, or even erosion if it's on a hillside. Either way, you can put "pop-up emitters" at the end, which basically just shed the overflow (that the soil can't absorb fast enough) to the surface.

Those engineered french drains are nice, but they're pretty expensive. It might actually be cheaper to do it the conventional way, depending on the cost of gravel and labor. That is, dig a trench, add gravel and a perforated 4" pipe, add more gravel, and top with soil. Around here (NY) labor is crazy expensive, so the engineered version is competitive.


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## Mystriss (Dec 26, 2018)

This is kind of what I'm thinking:










This allows me to bypass the high left side of the driveway (hidden behind spruce,) dig shallow near my favorite spruce's roots (center right,) and go deeper as I get closer to the second driveway (on left) which is mostly small birch and scrub brushes I don't care as much about losing.

(Here's the high part that's hidden behind my favorite spruce - second driveway is just past the mailboxes.)








The attached garage addition we are thinking about doing in the main driveway goes just a hair past the tail end of that Subaru on the right. The "entry way" addition doesn't even go out as far as the black spruce on the left. The detached shop/garage addition in the second driveway doesn't quite go out to the red truck. So this would keep the water away from all the new foundation work and deal with the majority of the water problem - I might take the bottom swell of the valley further down the driveway past that high clump of trees on the right just to try to give a kind of "platform" to cut down on sliding into the garage heh

I'll have to look at the cost for traditional vs the prefab. We'd be redoing the entire yard and getting gravel/sand/topsoil delivered in bulk for that anyway so it may indeed be cheaper.


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## ron45 (Feb 25, 2014)

I just happened across this video.

It starts at 0.38 into the video.

Maybe it would help you when you need it and then remove it when you don't.


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## ktownskier (Aug 22, 2018)

Even though this says no gravel is needed, for your situation and locale I would suggest that you do. 

If you don't have one, rent a mini-excavator, it will make digging easier and much more fun. 

You will need geo-textile fabric to put under and over the drain tube. Also, a supply of washed stone or granite. And if you want, a cistern to capture the water for gardening. 

You may want to consider putting in two drains. one midway and one at the bottom. You can get steel grates to cover the holes. 

First, cut the outlines of the drains in your driveway, it looks like asphalt. Wider is better. 

Then, digging as deep as you can, dig out for you drain tube. 

Line the whole hole with geo textile fabric. Put some washed stone/ granite at the base. A few inches. This will help capture any fines that do come through. 

Lay the drain tube in place and then cover it with about 6 inches of the stone/granite. Put down the next layer of geo-textile fabric, (BTW, this should be water permeable, obviously) and put down the stone/granite to bring it to the surface. This whole structure goes the width of the driveway and carries out into the side yard. 

There is a section in the current series of the This Old House series that deals with a similar situation. It has some good information. 

Good Luck, Ktown


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