French drain

All, I moved into an older home which has a French Drain around the Footor of the house and is built at the top of a small hill.... It is 17 years old and I am attempting to find where the French Drain Dumps too but without luck... Any ideas where I should be looking in the yard.. Should french drains be dumping out in the yard.. Should the end be visible?

Thanks

Reply to
Burhans
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These are now known as freedom drains and can easily be converted to hide weapons of mass construction.

-- Troweller^nospam^@canada.com

Reply to
ConcreteFinishing&StuccoGuy

The French drain could be going to daylight, a drywell, or storm system- if it is old enough, it could even be going to sanitary. It could be made of concrete tiles, vitreous tile, PVC, orangeburg, or gravel only.

I cannot think of any way to diagnose an old system.

(top posted for your convenience) ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Keep the whole world singing . . . . DanG (remove the sevens) snipped-for-privacy@7cox.net

Reply to
DanG

The Fench Drain is made of Black Plastic Perforated Pipe.... I can have looked all around and no luck finding out where it terminates... Is there any simple way to test? I have heard of Color Dyes to find the location of the termination... Does this really work?

Reply to
Burhans

If you know where it is at any point, you can (tediously) track it by sticking a screwdriver or other pointy item into the ground every so often. The end will likely be at the point where you can no longer find the pipe with your implement. (-;

Joe

Reply to
Joe S

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We hired a local construction company to install a french drain and to finish off our entire basement. Along one of the walls sits the hot water heater. They plan on moving it but not until the start the actual 'finishing' of the basement. Anyway, they cut the concrete floor and installed the drain around the hot water heater, coming out about three feet. Should they have moved it then proceeded with the french drain. Our basement does get wet so I'm a bit concerned. The contractor says its no big deal.

Thanks.

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Reply to
capitol

yes it should of been moved. perhaps they will drill weep holes in the block when the tank is moved?

if the tank is older its a good time to replace it

Reply to
hallerb

He's right. They went around my furnace. Absolute worst thing that can happen is that you have a trickle of water flow from the wall to the drain. It's not going to hurt anything since you won't have a finished floor under the water heater.

Reply to
Dan Espen

No problem. The French drain is there to catch subgrade water before it is on top of the floor. The assumption is that it is coming in close to the walls - ain't necessarily so. Having the gravel and pipe at the proper depth and headed to a sump is what matters.

Reply to
DanG

interior french drains locally all have block drain holes, with plastic trim.

so any water that gets in a block has a way out not on the floor..... not making wall wet.

Reply to
hallerb

They should have moved the water heater first.

I'd also point out that if you have a basement that has had water problems, I would not go directly from installing the french drain to finishing it. I'd wait at least a year, go through a few good rainy periods, etc to make sure the basement stays dry.

Reply to
trader4

well they can pull heater then do that little section tying it into the much larger job....

it sounded like the OP had plans to move heater to different location, so this approach is reasonable.

oddly were in the middle of this now, were getting a new furnace with air moving furnace a little.

have water issues, bottom of existing furnace rusted away.

so getting 12 feet where new furnace and other stuff will go, like new hot water tank. later i will get the balance done.

with all my business stuff here theres really no other way, project must be done in stages

Reply to
hallerb

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