French Drain: Holes Up For Gutter Sludge?

Holes down - always!!!!!! You are maintaining a hole through the dirt, you want the water to enter the hole as soon as possible. You do NOT want to have a pipe full of water. The idea is to move the water to somewhere else, not to let it into the soil/gravel. The sock and/or gravel is to try to keep dirt from choking the holes. Ground cloth on top of the gravel is to try to keep the gravel from getting choked.

Most of the crinkle wall (my term) black plastic product is done with slots all around the pipe.

Reply to
DanG
Loading thread data ...

I'm installing a French drain that will also be accepting water from several of my gutters. I have installed gutter gaurds on all of the gutters, so that should eliminate large debris from clogging up the drain, but a certain amount of gutter sludge is bound to make its way into the drain over time.

So, I'm thinking that installing the drain with holes-down will just dump that sludge into the gravel below the pipe (or into the pipe sock), where it will build up, whereas a holes-up situation would allow the sludge to remain in the pipe until it's eventually flushed out.

Does that sound logical?

Reply to
ShadowTek

If "sludge" washes down from the gutters, then you want it to keep on going....just my instinct, not expertise. Holes down to allow better emptying of the drains into the gravel would seem to be the better choice, as it would take fine sludge with it into the gravel. With holes up, it would seem like the drains would fill with water and allow silt to settle inside the drain pipe.

Reply to
norminn

-------------------------------------

Reply to
bobarchitect39

I would do research on this, my french drain is about 90 yrs old and still flowing fast but ive heard of instalations clogging in 10 years that were not done as best as can be done. Gravel surrounding the pipe is a must and hole down is how I did my last tile system, the sock will probably fail with holes up.

Reply to
ransley

My understanding is that gutter drains should be solid and kept separate from perforated French drains. If the two are combined, then if the drain plugs up from gutter debris, the gutter water gets dumped into precisely the ground area you are trying to drain.

If you are trying to collect surface water that percolates downward, you put the holes up. If you are trying to collect ground water rising upward (i.e. a foundation drain), then you put the holes down.

Cheers, Wayne

Reply to
Wayne Whitney

  1. Do not connect your gutters to your french drain system.
  2. French drain systems always have the pipe holes on the bottom to start accepting water at even the lowest levels in the trench.
Reply to
mike

These gutter guards work very well at keeping debris out of the gutters, they just have to be swept off from above every once and a while, or the water will run right over them. I know that blackish sludge and shingle grit will eventually make its way down the spout, so that's all I'm concerned about.

The intersections along the drain are only about 40 feet apart at most, with each gutter connected to the main drain by a Y fitting, so a snake would be guided downhill at each connection, which should make snaking each section easy, if were ever needed.

Surface water is my only real concern, as the land was poorly graded.

Reply to
ShadowTek

PVC pipe is dirt cheap run seperate lines, ideally the lines should drain well away from home to daylight.

If your installing exterior french drains it should be below footer level......

Reply to
hallerb

Thats what I did and what is recommended if I remember right, but I dont really remember right.

Reply to
ransley

HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.