How to Dig a Dry Well | This Old House

Back at the Detroit house, Roger Cook installs a dry well to help rain water drain away from the house.
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Back at the Detroit house, Roger Cook installs a dry well at the front and back of the house in order to move rain water away from the house and prevent it from getting into the basement.
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How to Dig a Dry Well | This Old House
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[@hem8515]

I’m so glad Roger and Kevin matched wardrobes for this episode 😉😉😉

[@kman-mi7su]

Man, I wish Roger didn't have to retire from the show because of health issues. Nobody is betta at fixing waata issues in yaaads.

[@TheIggypop1]

Haaaave too fix the gaaarden too..

[@charlesviner1565]

LOVE Roger Cook

[@rkucbel1]

No need for a tank. I dug a hole about 4.5ft deep x 4ft x 4ft and just threw a bunch leftover bricks and rocks that I had around the property. Didn't use any geotextile except on the top where I threw the soil on top and planted grass. A neigbor showed me how he did it and he has it this way 20 years now. Total cost: About $20 for the drain pipe, leaf catcher, and a bit of fabric. And about two days of hard labor.

[@1806StoneHouse]

I had to do this and it worked amazing!!

[@ConstructionMachineryChannel]

Roger is pretty good on that excavator. Good video once again guys.

[@esam2017]

👍👍👍good idea

[@charlesviner1565]

I've done waterproofing and that is exactly how I would do that

[@Demy26]

It’s all about the formula

[@patty109109]

I don’t really get the point of the dry well if you have sufficient pitch to use the pop-up anyway and have it go toward the street. It’s also gonna be a lot harder to clean out. I implemented one of these pop-ups near my house with straight PVC piping. Rain pops it up and it gets out. Easy to clean as well.

[@lolitabonita08]

i had a problem in my back yard...water was blocked by my "nice" neighbor who made his fence with a base of cement blocking the natural pathway of the water...so each time that rained i had two or three inches of water flood... I did a 5 feet by 5 feet hole...took me 3 months to make it...64 year old petite lady digging a heavy clay soil...I did it...then i found some used heavy duty containers...made holes and put them inside the hole...with some rocks found around my property...fabric...sand...soil and voila the problem was solved...

[@sharong8511]

Well done, Lolitabonita! Ingenuity and perseverance equaled success! I’m a little upset nobody helped you dig that hole, though...

[@lolitabonita08]

@@sharong8511 Thank you for your comment. It took me a while to figure out the solution to the problem...digging a french drainage was not economically possible...so i watched an old video from this old house in which one of them was fixing issues like mine...involve buying the tank and that it was a no go for economical reasons..so i put my thinking cap and voila...solution at last. I live by myself so i do what it is needed even if takes me months... I do not give up so easily... Blessings to you and yours Have a very safe and happy new year celebration...

[@sharong8511]

@@lolitabonita08 Thank you so much. My New Years Eve will consist of staying inside and enjoying some snacks and a nice cup of tea with my 80-something mother. We are blessed. I hope you have a safe and beautiful beginning to 2021 also. 💕

[@SubaruWRXStiYamahaR6-AllGone]

You mean "woder"?

[@lolitabonita08]

@@sharong8511 thank you for your warm wishes I have God and Jesus on my side so I do not fear anything....I am blessed I have food on the table, a roof over my head and I am happy....so all good. 2021 will be better ...By the way just in case. If you or your mother or anyone u know get sick with the nasty bug called corona aka the flu...take 3/4 cup of water put to boil with a lime or lemon cut in four parts with the skin and all put inside the pot...let boil for 10 minutes...take it down ...squeeze all the juice of the lime or lemon into the water, add raw honey and take two aspirins if you do not have medical issues by taking aspirin...take it as hot as u can...some people that i know tried, and works. It taste bitter so that is why u need the honey. I tried with the nasty bug last year and in less than an hour i was fine. Please know that I am not a doctor nor pretend to be one but this is a natural remedy that works. Blessings.

[@user-py9io2bs7z]

doesn't the grabble gets into the little holes of the tank? I have this question as I'm currently doing the exact same work on my property. Thanks!

[@Notooshabyy]

It took me 5 seconds to notice that the guys with the shovels at the beginning of the video, were doing ABSOLUTELY NOTHING! 😂😂😂

[@sshine1234]

Haha, i just noticed that too

[@miller8084]

Curious: while I know the fabric keeps the stone clean of debris to drain, wouldn’t it increase the leaching effect to not include it? Also, solid pipe for 4 feet and then “perk” pipe to get water away from foundation would be a slight improvement. All in all, great stuff.

[@brianmartin9784]

They are using a gravel mix designed for drainage, it dose not contain any fine material in it, so when compacted about 40% of the volume is open space. The gravel is adding more storage volume and it exposes more soil area to infiltrate into. The fabric is designed for water to pass through but not the soil. If you take away the fabric the soil is going to wash into and fill those voids in the gravel (and eventually the pipe and well) reduce storage and clog up the whole system.

[@russhoppe3971]

Like this whole plan to sink dry wells in the yard ok

[@JustNel]

seament

[@charliep5139]

0:45 we gotta get the water out away from the house. if you look behind him, the neighbor's downspout is just dumping water at the crevice of the driveway and their house! 😛 Also, i know in some places you're not allowed to dump roof water into the street and/or cut into the curb, but it would've been nice for them to address this. It seems like the easiest and best solution would've been to put a pvc underground drain pipe from the house, under the sidewalk and exiting onto the street.

[@scottwolverine3062]

so i see rodger is back working. is he ok, is he gonna be able to continue being on these episodes?

[@jblyon2]

Roger has been retired for a while. These are older episodes. He supposedly has Parkinson's.

[@daveyhogan]

Need a dry well for my washing machine

[@yankeesfan2726]

sea - mint

[@joeshmoe7789]

Why the perforated pipe and stones between the tank? They're putting the water into the ground right at the house. It should be a solid pipe covered with dirt. The ground in front of the house needs to be graded. If that's sand, it needs to be removed a dense soil brought in. Why build for 1" of rain? Where is this, Arizona?

[@cantstandya112]

With all that drainage stone, how can you grow grass on top of it and not have every drop of water drain out of the topsoil?

[@ovidiuciuparu6421]

You won’t....😁 That reservoir is so undersized that you will have a swamp...

[@SaltySparrow]

This guy had a ton of work done to his house.

[@SuperGamingeek]

So if the excess water is going to the street in the event of a large storm, why bother with a dry well at all? Why not just have all the water route directly to the street via a trench?

[@scotttovey]

Water erodes, so if you can divert most of it into the ground; you're saving your tax bill. In addition to that; Michigan winters can produce some nasty winter weather in which the temps go from nice and balmy to freezing before the sun goes down. If that balmy weather included rain, then all of that water on the road turns to ice. The less water flowing down the the streets the better.

[@SuperGamingeek]

@@scotttovey I see. What do you mean with your first point about saving on your tax bill?

[@N-hunter]

@@SuperGamingeek if the water erodes the streets, they’ll have to be repaved by the city more often, which ultimately ends up on your property taxes

[@GL-tx9dv]

@@N-hunter I've never heard this perspective before. I can't say I share it.

[@patty109109]

@@scotttovey I think you’re making up answers to be honest. at two separate houses I have had my drains go directly to these pop-up things-no dry well. This is in New York and my drain only buried a few inches below soil. The pops are easy to install and they work very well and they are easy to clean. I also have no idea why they bothered with the dry well if they had enough pitch to get off the yard. This dry well required a great deal of labor and materials. Where is if they had not bothered it could be done by a single guy in an afternoon with a 4 inch trench shovel.

[@jacksplumbingvideos7147]

dry wells are bad. they fill up with water in no time. if you can, daylight the pipe or if need be you can use a pop up. but use a pop up great. don't use the cheap ones by NDS.

[@TheIggypop1]

Have to have filtering before it goes to dry well and the soil is a big factor if it's going to work. Clay soils no won't work well

[@kenzaifun]

I had my basement flooded twice with ~4 feet of water during Henri and Ida. I asked around my neighbors and they didn't get an inch of water in their basements. i have two sump pumps working. and still water came through sump pits and overwhelmed the pumps. all my gutters and french drain go the dry well in front of my house. ( 10 - 12 feet). My suspicion is that that dry well somehow fed back into my house. Going to dig it out to figure it out.

[@TheIggypop1]

@@kenzaifun might have to go way further out 50 some feet. Is it sandy soil?

[@kenzaifun]

@@TheIggypop1 It's hard to dig soil. Looks like clay to me. I can't go 50 feet. as my house 35 feet from the street. :( I am thinking of getting rid of this thing all together. and daylighting my gutters and my french drain.

[@TheIggypop1]

@@kenzaifun drywall? Like you overwhelmed the dry well with 2 pumps French drain gutters . Probably need a.few more at least another drywall away from the other drywell

[@trentmehaffey7480]

I dont understand why you wouldn't just pipe all that water to the street and get rid of it.

[@scotttovey]

Besides it likely being a city code; you really don't want to do that during the winter months where there water freezes and rather than having a nice drive; your car goes ice scatting down the street.

[@sandrastevens2793]

In our my town not allowed to run your gutter drain. Or sump pump to the street to then go into storm drains. My house was already piped to the street. And storm drain is right at the at the opening. The reason I was told it was not allowed was that water and ice would accumulate In the street causing ice problem and accidents. I was also told to dog a dry well. The neighbor's yard is lower than mine. It collects a lot of water. Which when full it floods my yard. So there for need a dry well and maybe a drain to the front of house and down the bank. I also was told about the Guttwe going out to a pop up drain far away from basements and to grading around outside foundation!

[@kalijasin]

Many municipalities wont let you.

[@PS-vc2yz]

How do you not show the finished product??

[@danielh7503]

Because This Old House is all about short snippets for their videos on here.

[@ryandann9362]

Did Roger get better or is this old footage?

[@shinybaldy]

Old footage. Roger is not going to magically get better and during this pandemic it’ll be a particularly bad idea for him to be working.

[@djamelhamdia134]

Roger officially retired in 2017 and was replaced by Jen, I think he has Parkinson.

[@Yorkie285]

It's his ghost

[@ryandann9362]

I figured as much. The way he was standing at the beginning he looked sick to me, but as soon as he talked I was hoping a newedicine or treatment had made a miraculous recovery. Wish I was right....

[@ovidiuciuparu6421]

So you have an excavator on site and those 2 guys were digging by hand? Wow! So... also you just created a sink hole in the yard on top of the 1” storm ... that is like normal. I will call this a complete fail! Why that water could not be drained into the main street? Did i missed something?

[@davidbrydon3969]

Yes, you "missed" some English lessons apparently.

[@ovidiuciuparu6421]

@@davidbrydon3969 so? Do you like what they did? What English lessons?

[@AM1015-]

gas line maaaaaked out

[@soonerjontheconservative636]

why not just run it out into the street?

[@ovidiuciuparu6421]

I had the same question...

[@sweetpina3875]

I mean in some places you can’t plus there’s a sidewalk so you definitely can’t guarantee it goes straight to the street

[@Designbuild828]

You don’t want to overload the watershed system, so a dry well helps slow down the water that goes into the watershed. When too much water goes into the natural system, it might washout plant life.

[@yuvgotubekidding]

See ment.

[@winstonian88]

Why not just daylight all of it down by the road?

[@kevinbrock8081]

On your videos you do not give enough detail size stone how far from the house they’re interesting but not very helpful

[@msarwar5320]

why not just let the new gutter drain in old swear lines ? why all this when you already have a drain pipe?

[@Mark.Watson]

Many cities no longer allow it due to capacity of their sewer system.

[@Ted_E_Bear]

Let Miss Molly do it !!

[@jacksplumbingvideos7147]

miss molly is working again ya'll

[@aurvaroy6670]

It's good to see Roger doing well. JK, I know this is an old episode and he's currently suffering Parkinson's

[@MaverickandStuff]

That perforated pipe and rock leading to the dry well is not a good idea. The water will flow through the rock right into the foundation.

[@norbiu]

I heard this before, but then how would you redirect rain water that falls in the area next to the house if the pipe is not perforated? Do you run two pipes?

[@MaverickandStuff]

@Norbert you need to have the land sloped away from your foundation. You dont want any perforated pipe close to the surface near the foundation. It creates a low spot that can invite water to the foundation. The system shown might work for a few years, but it will get clogged over time, and all that water will end up in your foundation.

[@norbiu]

@@MaverickandStuff Besides the downspouts, I have water coming in from my neighbour and gathering by one side of the house. Not sure how I can get rid of both.

[@MaverickandStuff]

@Norbert you will need to create some sort of swell to divert the water. The main thing is to keep the water away from the house. You may need to install a pvc drain for your gutters, and convence your neighbors to also connect their gutters to it.

[@kalijasin]

Cement in the old drain pipe is atrocious. They could of just put a cap on it.

[@tomtimmons2228]

I hope you called Dig safe.

[@ryandann9362]

Roger says they called ahead and had gas lines marked out. I think we only call it dig safe in New England area. Detroit, where they are, has something similar it seems

[@jetnavigator]

He literally said that within the first minute. That was too long for you to wait before commenting?

[@StoneE4]

Did you comment without even watching the video? Or are you deaf and blind? At 0:57 Roger specifically says he had the gas line marked out and you can clearly see the yellow flags indicating it.

[@tomtimmons2228]

@@StoneE4 Yes. I am hearing impaired. I just didn’t see any flags. I apologize for my disability.

[@tomtimmons2228]

@@jetnavigator I have impaired hearing. I’m sorry if I’m not as able as you.