How to INSTALL a French Drain: A Complete Guide

How to install a french drain , is your lawn getting water logged or flooding? A French drain could be the answer to all your questions.
Watch this video to follow the steps that Jack aka The Big Friendly Gardener teaches you to install your own French drainage!
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[@cutcrewltd]

Good luck people! Have you installed a french drain before? Do you think you need one?? I'd love to know!

[@grahambrown5874]

I installed a French drain under my lawn because the clay soil caused the lawn to flood and kill the grass. I removed 40-tonnes of clay and replaced with premium topsoil. Below the topsoil I dug several trenches, so I could lay interconnected, perforated drainpipe. The trenches were lined with geo-fabric, the pipes were then laid in the trenches with a gradient to allow the water to flow away to the main drain, and the pipes covered with gravel and wrapped over with the geo-fabric. What is important is that all the gravel is wrapped in the fabric to allow the water in, but keep out the soil that would otherwise wash through the gravel and eventually fill up all the air gaps and prevent the wastewater reaching the pipes. There are two rules of thought on whether to use fabric, but this is the approach I prefer to ensure the drain operates efficiently for many years. I only want to do the job once.

[@MaureenThomas125]

If the new land drains are going connect to an existing storm drain do we need anything such as a silt trap or a catchpit?

[@JJLewin1]

Wish I had a digger back in the day. I have laid quite a number of French drains in the past, all by hand. Lovely job!

[@TalkAmyTalk]

We have 2 levels in our garden, top level is 4 sleepers high. On top level is grass and we would like to put French drain in the grass level. How would we get the French drain down behind the sleepers to a drain at the front of the house?

[@loveyourlawn9725]

Superb video mate. Cutcrew groundworks!

[@cutcrewltd]

+Love your Lawn thanks mate!!!

[@Superallie]

Great video. Love your channel. If you have a small garden which is water logged. If you put a pipe in, where do you send the water too? Or do you just dig a whole and bung in some gravel?

[@mc3241]

My gardens 37.5 m2, i need a land drain what depth do i dig the drain too? Plz help

[@TheBlueOwl21]

Interesting video. I am planning on installing a french drain to capture running surface water and divert into a nearby ditch. Silly question - With the perforated pipe, do the holes need to face up or down ? As mentioned it’s to capture running surface water, and secondly is it a good idea to also have a surface yard drain to help capture the water ? The drain will initially start on hard standing gravel (caravan site pitch) and then onto grass. Thanks

[@Herk_Derp_20]

I’m surprised nobody has replied to you yet! Holes point down. As the water table rises, the holes on the bottom will capture the rising water and carry it away.

[@redamohamed4759]

Thanks for your video. My back garden is always looking muddy specially on the rainy days . I am looking to put French drains in the garden. What do you think? Also what’s your advice to where should the deeper end of the drain to be in ? Thanks

[@cutcrewltd]

I’d seek professional advice; get someone round to take a look at all of the circumstances in your back garden!

[@sharonmc5192]

We have a garden with a 45 degree slope in the middle of it and trees to the left outside our boundary. We always get a really soggy, mossy bottom right hand corner of the garden in Autumn/Winter as we get no sun in that corner during those months. Would a French drain diagonally across the slope work? Also if we don’t have a place to drain to, would a soakaway be the solution? If so where would you put it? Thanks 👍🏼

[@cutcrewltd]

Soak away would be fine, installed at lowest point!

[@TheReelMowingMowingClub]

Hello BFG, great video and will be using this as a reference to install French Drain in my garden, however, would you know over what width the drain will be effective to? i.e. if you fit a 100mm pipe, will it only be effective over a width of 100mm or is there a rule of thumb?

[@cutcrewltd]

Hi mate! Aslomg as the pipe has gravel cavity all away around you would be fine so I’d say 200mm wide for a 100mm pipe, however you could fit a wider pipe or a double pipe and increase the width! It all depends on the issues it’s facing!

[@TheReelMowingMowingClub]

@@cutcrewltd Cheers for getting back to me. My lawn is about 17m long by 18m wide but one side struggles with displacing water. was looking to build 2 french drains on the damp side, but wondering if i need to do just one, or maybe 3 or 4

[@sarmadmrana]

Can we lay new turf now ? Or have to wait till summer/spring?

[@cutcrewltd]

You can lay turf all year round! Go for it! Just make sure it’s not in the minus temperatures!

[@malkomalkavian]

Talking about drainage and stuff. I've just moved house and got a garden, yay. But there seems to be a drainage problem and today I dug some holes to have a look around. In one bit of the garden there is a big grey layer, with a reddish brown layer underneath. Thick clay soil. I filled the hole with water at 1pm and its 9pm and it hasn't drained away yet. My theory is that it might have been dumped from some building work the previous occupants did, as it is nothing like the soil in the rest of the garden or surrounding gardens. Do you have any advice? I've got a few ideas myself but you might have a tried and tested plan of action. Thanks for the vids about lawns, I've got a few tips from them already :)

[@cutcrewltd]

There’s a few options, you can install a French drain like in the video, but ideally you’d need to get past the clay, this might be mega deep and in practical, the other option is to strip the lot back around 500/700mm and then build it back up with some decent soil. However it’s hard to give you a firm “best answer” with out seeing it. Feel free to ping me some videos or photos if you need to!

[@malkomalkavian]

@@cutcrewltd Yeah, my first plan is to keep digging until I find where the layer ends. I only get to work on it at weekends though, so I'll try to get you some pics then. Thanks for the reply :)

[@petermoran2555]

🌟 Promo'SM!!

[@thelouiebrand]

Less talk more work.