French drain- sock or landscape fabric?

[Jim Elbrecht]

I'm in the process of putting a french drain around my basement. [on the inside]

The ditch itself, in order to utilize the slope of my property is about 3'deep. The ditch runs about 12-18"wide. The soil is a hardpan/clay.

My plan has been to line the ditch with landscape fabric before installing the perf-pipe & #2 stone. Someone mentioned using a sock on the perf-pipe & I'm wondering if that would be worth the money or effort.

[and btw-- I've been trying to find 8'+wide landscape fabric locally without success. The best I've found so far is a 10x300' roll for $120 -plus $80 shipping from . Anyone know of a better deal? ]

thanks, Jim

[m Ransley]

Buy the pipe with the sock instaled

[Art]

Home Depot or Lowes sells Dupont heavy duty fabric but I don't remember the size. We used it for a big deep trench so it must have been reasonable. Don't buy the lesser non commercial grade.

We used a sock plus the fabric liner and gravel. It is a big job and you don't want to have to repeat it because the pipe gets filled with mud.

[Betsy]

there is a very specific filtering fabric that is sold for this purpose. I saw it at HD only days ago in the section with the perforated pipe.

[Art]

I think the Dupont commercial grade multiuse fabric looked a lot better than the specialized stuff sold for less at Home depot.

[Rudy]

"> there is a very specific filtering fabric that is sold for this purpose. I

YEs, I have a roll of it in my garage.."leftovers". Its sort of like the green desktop pad material but its a tan color.

R