French drain project with the new B2650

[PA452]

Figured I'd share some pics of a project from late last week. Put in a french drain around a pole building on some land I bought a few years back. I tend to get a good bit of groundwater just uphill of this building. That and the area around the man door and to the side of the garage door, when it rains water tends to just lay in a pool there. The ground there is clay, so it doesn't go anywhere. The floor in the building is dirt, and it gets pretty damp in there when things are really wet. Figure maybe this will help with the frost heaves some too.

The new B2650 loaded up, ready to go.

On site.

Preparing to dig.

I'm trenching along about 55' of building between the two sides, with not a lot of fall available on the downhill side to work with, so I'm starting a little shallow and slowly going deeper. In the pic it looks really shallow, but it's a little deeper than it appears.

All trenches dug.

Did the trench late afternoon Thursday. Back on Friday to finish the job. Here's the downhill side. Pic is taken from a fence line, can't go any farther than that.

Looking down toward the fence.

Cleaned up all the dirt piles where I'll need to add stone. Again, trench is deeper than it appears here.

Fabric in the trench and laying the pipe in.

 

[PA452]

Time for stone.

Around the bend.

Gratuitous tractor shot.

After filling the trench where I had perforated pipe up most of the way, I added a top layer of fabric, then stone up to grade on top of that.

 

[PA452]

Complete for this year I think. Just need to figure out how I want to handle the very end of the pipe where it drains out, but that doesn't need to be right now. This was the next day. Maples sure dropped a lot of leaves on my new stone overnight. Stopped by today after we got a lot of rain yesterday. Steady stream of water coming out of the pipe.

 

[m.t.hands]

nice, should really help with drainage

 

[SMKK]

Looks like a nice job, how is the water draining now. I have a similar project to do myself, a 40x70 coverall, getting lots of water coming in from rain off the roof and run off from uphill of the building. How long did it take you to complete the excavation?

 

[PA452]

Looks like a nice job, how is the water draining now. I have a similar project to do myself, a 40x70 coverall, getting lots of water coming in from rain off the roof and run off from uphill of the building. How long did it take you to complete the excavation?

Thanks.

We had a good bit of rain Saturday night. It's sort of hard to tell just how good it's working, but Sunday afternoon there was a steady stream of water coming out the pipe, so all that water would have been up there in the ground otherwise. There was no pool laying by the doors, though considering it hasn't been all that wet this fall, it's hard to say if there would have been anyway or not.

The ground 10-20' uphill of the drain can get really wet at times. Even though the drain doesn't directly run up into that spot, I'm wondering if maybe it'll help dry that out some just by providing an outlet for the water to drain instead of just staying stagnant in the soil.

The trenches took me probably around 2.5 hours, 3 max. I was taking my time, did the whole job myself, and having to back in toward the building at an angle for all the digging slowed it down a good bit. The whole project probably took about 10-11 hours.

 

[D2Cat]

PA452, looks good. What kind of fabric did you use? Can't tell by the pictures, but porous I'd guess.

I'd suggest taking a piece of hail screen/hardware cloth and cut and fold so you can put it in the end of the pipe. I then take a welding rod and knock all the flux off and about one inch up, bend one end at 90 deg. Drive the rod through the pipe and through the screen to hold it in place.

You don't want a critter to go in there and plug it up!!

 

[dirtydeed]

looks like you did a nice job. congrats. Agree with capping the drain end. They do sell slotted caps for that drain pipe.

I'll bet that you can really appreciate the 180 degree swing of the BH77 hoe. Trying to do a job like this without that swing angle can be quite frustrating.

 

[PA452]

PA452, looks good. What kind of fabric did you use? Can't tell by the pictures, but porous I'd guess.

I'd suggest taking a piece of hail screen/hardware cloth and cut and fold so you can put it in the end of the pipe. I then take a welding rod and knock all the flux off and about one inch up, bend one end at 90 deg. Drive the rod through the pipe and through the screen to hold it in place.

You don't want a critter to go in there and plug it up!!

Thanks, and yeah, good call on the screen. I'll look for a vented or screened end cap.

The fabric was just landscape fabric from Lowes. It's actually intended for blocking weeds and soil while letting water through. I think the woven geo-textile stuff is better, but I couldn't find it when I was looking. I've helped put in drains with no fabric at all, so I figure even if this isn't the best fabric for the job it's better than none.

 

[PA452]

looks like you did a nice job. congrats. Agree with capping the drain end. They do sell slotted caps for that drain pipe.

I'll bet that you can really appreciate the 180 degree swing of the BH77 hoe. Trying to do a job like this without that swing angle can be quite frustrating.

Thanks, and absolutely on the 180 degree swing. I had a BX23 before this but knew I was getting the B2650. I actually saved this job for the B2650 largely for that reason.

 

[shiraz627]

I would of covered the drain with a geotextile fabric to minimize dirt infiltration.

 

[PA452]

I would of covered the drain with a geotextile fabric to minimize dirt infiltration.

There's a top layer of fabric 3-4" below that top layer of stone.

 

[ArtinAz]

Time for stone.

Around the bend.

Gratuitous tractor shot.

After filling the trench where I had perforated pipe up most of the way, I added a top layer of fabric, then stone up to grade on top of that.

What size bucket did you use? This is some I'm going to do when my L3901 co es in next week.

 

[PA452]

I have a 16" bucket on the backhoe and 60" on the FEL.

 

[ArtinAz]

I have a 16" bucket on the backhoe and 60" on the FEL.

Cool. My bucket's a 4in1 66".l