Keeping Your Home Dry With French Drains

Moisture inside a home is a severe concern that can lead to health issues and structural damage. The key is to control moisture and keep it from getting into the home at all costs. A French drains helps prevent water damage by funneling excess moisture away from a home or landscape. Read on to learn more about the benefits of French drain installation.

Clean Air

French drains provide the added benefit of clean air by keeping damp spaces away from your home. Damp areas create breeding grounds for mold and mildew, resulting in unhealthy living conditions for your family. French drains keep the ground dry, preventing these unhealthy conditions from forming and channeling moisture away from your foundation and basement.

Unlike gutters, which collect precipitation as they run off the roof, French drains manage water on the yard’s surface. Depending on your preference, the pipe carries the excess moisture to another drainage area in your yard or a municipal sewer system. In addition to reducing the risk of water damage, a French drain helps maintain healthy soil by preventing soil erosion. When excess water washes away, topsoil, grass, and plants cannot grow. A French drain keeps the topsoil right where it needs to be, allowing the lawn and landscaping to thrive.

Before digging a trench, you must consider the general route of your drainage system and ensure that it won’t affect other people’s property or public areas. A professional can help you determine the best placement of your drain to avoid problems. They can also contact the local utility company to have any buried power, gas, or water lines marked before digging begins. They can also advise you on the appropriate depth of your French drain based on the problem areas and surrounding landscape.

Increased Property Value

If you want to sell your house, a well-kept French drain might make it more appealing to potential purchasers. It could also reduce the cost of any repairs needed due to floods or water damage that occurs in the future.

A French drain works by rerouting water away from a low area of your property. It’s a simple and practical approach to minimize soil erosion and water damage to your home.

The drain system consists of a perforated pipe with slots that allow for drainage, plus pea gravel that acts as a filter and prevents clogs. The gravel is washed before French drain installation in New Jersey, which helps reduce the fine particles that enter the pipe and impede drainage.

Stagnant water can ruin your yard, harbor mosquito larvae and other pests, and cause significant damage to a foundation or basement. A French drain may safeguard your property and help you keep a beautiful garden by channeling water into a safe drainage area.

When laying a French drain, the best option is to hire professionals. They have the skills, equipment, and expertise to ensure your drainage solution will be effective for years. Before they start digging, it’s a good idea to contact your local utility company and have any underground lines marked. This will avoid any costly mistakes and delays.

Reduced Water Damage

A French drain is one of the most cost-effective ways to keep water away from your home. Standing water not only degrades lawns and causes dirt to be tracked inside, but it also promotes mold and mildew growth, which can impact interior air quality.

A well-installed French drain will redirect the water from the problem area downhill. You’ll want to make sure the slope of the drain is correct by driving stakes into the ground at both the top and bottom of your proposed drainage site. Measure from the first visible measurement marker on each stake and divide to determine the slope of the drain.

From the outside, a French drain looks much like a rock drainage ditch and is a beautiful addition to your property. It’s filled with gravel, and a perforated or slotted pipe is embedded in the middle that takes the water downhill. If you’d like to minimize toxic runoff, consider directing the pipe toward a rain garden where plant roots can take in the water and filter it through their root systems.

While installing a French drain is simple, hiring a professional landscaper is often best. They’ll have the right equipment and experience to complete the job quickly without causing damage or disrupting any existing exterior structures.

Reduced Clogs

A French drain system reroutes excess water away from your home, and the areas of your property where standing water has been a problem. This prevents the deterioration of your foundation and basement walls while minimizing water damage to lawns, plants, and structures like sheds and patios.

One of the reasons that French drains are so popular is because they give you control over exactly where you want the redirected water to go. You can direct it into the street, your lower elevation yard, a drainage ditch, or entirely elsewhere.

Clogs happen when something blocks wastewater from flowing down the drain pipe. Food scraps, hair, gum (yes, even those irritating label stickers that come off your fruits and vegetables), soap scum, and other substances can cause them. A clog can go back into your home or the city sewer line, creating a severe plumbing issue requiring costly repairs.

Conclusion

French drains are designed to prevent clogs by preventing debris from settling in the trench and pipe. A professional will install a thick layer of gravel in the trench and add a porous fabric mesh to the bottom before filling it with dirt so nothing will clog the drain. You can also reduce the chances of a clog by not putting food waste down the drain and using a filter in your kitchen sink.