On your recommendation and with your design we installed a vertical drain behind our garage. It cleared up all of our floodimg issues! Thank you, Chuck!
Thanks for the great idea, I have clay it is a pain . In my garden I have a problem with drainage due to many factors . I used your idea and the water drained out faster then ever before, thank you.
I did similar in my yard in Virginia. Except i went down 5 to 6 feet or more until i hit water. I lined with fabric and filled with stone. It completely eliminated my flowerbeds getting filled up and mulch floating away. I also dug about 5 between house and garage to eliminate water puddling there completely. Additionally, I have pipe running underground from my downspouts and I dug exact same under where popup dumps water in the street gutter. Anything left in pipe drains out to vertical drain below, 6 feet.
I’m in southeast Texas. I installed a vertical drain a week before we received almost 3 inches of rain . If there ever was a test, that was it. There was standing water for about 8 hours after the rain, however, it did dissipate and was completely dry by the next day. Not standing for 2 or 3 days like before. I call it a success. I plan on adding another one like this. Might even go with the 8 inch NDS pipe.
May 17th we rented a gas powered post hole digger (Dirt Dawg?) with a 16" auger. I precut 15 round sod pieces around the perimeter of our septic field: 10 close to the house and the septic tank, in line with the fingers, and 5 on the other side of the septic field, then augured down as far as it would go. Ended up with holes that were between 28" and 32" deep. Lined most of them with Geotextile material and #8 stone...2 tons just about filled them all. Put the sod back in place. 12 days later (last night) we get a torrential downpour, which would typically get our toilets gurgling. (The water table in the yard was the issue...not providing enough runoff to keep the septic tank from flooding and backing up in to the house!) NO GURGLES TODAY!! The final test will be later next week, as we expect 4 days of rain here in Indiana. SO...THANK YOU for this awesome idea!! My backup plan was to trench out along the same line as the holes we dug, if the vertical drain holes didn't work well enough. Seems to be doing the job of keeping the water table below the septic. Side note: I suggested adding standard french drains around the perimeter to one of the septic replacement companies and they said, "It won't work." But then they turned around and told us that they install french drains when they put in a new septic system. REALLY??!! It's disheartening to see companies still fighting for their bottom line and not advocating for the best and most affordable suggestions for their customers. I would have been more likely to hire them for future jobs had they not been so quick to recommend the $40,000 MOUND SYSTEM to replace our 50+ year old septic. Keeps chugging along!!
I live in East Texas where we have sandyloam. What you show in this video is basically very sandy soil with a very short distance to a "hard pan" as you call it. Well, it's not the case in my area. Sandy loam is nasty after rain and the top surface can reach up to and above 3 feet. I gave it a try in one area and I was about 3.5 feet down. Did I notice any difference? Let's put it this way: the water was not receding any faster (at least through my perception) than before. This tells me that the "hard pan" was even lower than my 3.5 feet. At this point, I think, going horizontal with a pipe to the nearest outlet is probably a better solution due to the diminished results of "vertical" drainage.
I tried this in my yard, but I have deep clay. The first 16” is good soil, but then clay. I dug down 5’ and it’s still clay. Will vertical drainage work in my situation? Thanks
How far away from your house's foundation should you keep away so the water doesn't flow under and come back up under the house in the crawl space. We have clay soil, will it work in that. Your soil looked like sand. Could you use a gasoline auger to dig down about 3 feet x 8". Thanks
Maxed out my post hole digger in Houston clay (maybe 4 or 5' deep). Can't get deep enough. Hole holds water and doesn't drain. Got to take it to the street.
I had the same issue. I was excited to try vertical drainage, but I couldn't get past the clay at 5' deep. I'm thinking of just making a few deep holes like that filled with gravel and see where it goes. I spread woodchips around the swampy areas for now and that's much better though hopefully temporary
Hi Chuck. Recently subscribed to your channel and thank you for your research and educational videos. I am in NY and and I have two vertical drains in my driveway and they are right in front of garage doors. The vertical drains are slotted. The garage is lower than the street level. Two questions hoping you can answer. 1. Is there a way to pitch the rain water away from the house. I see old termite damage around the garage frame. My thoughts is the moisture build up via the vertical drain makes it an attractive home for subterranean insects. Could the vertical drain be angled 45 degrees away from the house? It will create 2 feet distance away from the house. 2. My second question is...during heavy heavy rain, one of the vertical drainage puddles while other (8 feet away) does not puddle. Eventually the impacted vertical drainage will clear on its own. What should I try to clear the drainage before I start digging up concrete. Again, really appreciate you creating these educational content.
I have huge problem with water . The property i bought. Is very wet . And there is farm land and orchards behind me that is higher and drain naturally into my property. If i am going to fix it i will have to dig 10 feet at least and shuve 4 10 feet culverts vertically with wholes in them the diameter of each one should be at least 1foot and half or more . And pray it works . I have alot of standind water . At times it looks like a freaking spring .
Irrelevant to this video….. but if I do a backyard with catch basins (12x12) How many of them can I connect to the same pipe to an exit way? Like every 15 feet I have one catch basin connecting to another… then all exiting at the back of a yard through a pop up
I put a drain cap on the place that was in the center of the wet area. Roughly a twenty five foot square area. Then the other four I used the sod. I just mowed today after having heavy rain yesterday. Its important to dig below the clay layer
Would it help to make the straight down even much bigger if you have a much bigger area/ water coming? I mean like e.g. 5ft x 5ft, filling it up with gravel?
Due to precipitation increasing dramatically because weather is turning extreme, vertical drain may not work for all locations The best principle is collect the water and discharge to a mayor collecting system designed to haul large amounts of water or floods
Great drainage videos! I saw a few where you just put the sod back on over the vertical hole and others had those caps. Which way do you think is better? Thank you
Chuck! I need ya help! I did the process, I dug down 2ft and it worked good for a few rains but now its backing up with water. I pulled all the gravel and dug an extra ft (3ft total) i have a clear vision of bottom of hole and slowly but surely, water is coming up from bottom of hole. Man idk what to do now. Any suggestions?
@@Ironsmithfarm unfortunately I live in an area where the hard pan is deeper than 3ft. Since I don't know how many more ft it is, I'm just going to place some catch cans and run it to the pipes that's connected to my gutters. Some people have only a foot or 2 of hard pan where the vertical drain does work.
I have two places close to my house foundation where the water pools with a hard rain. Can I put in a vertical drain if it is about 4-6 feet from the house?
@@appledrains One day in and what a difference! All of the mushy grass and mud has gone and we can actually walk on it now without getting wet feet! We just filled the holes with membrane and gravel rather than using a pipe.
This water goes into the earth. The idea is to tunnel through the layer of soil which doesn't absorb water very well, and drain into deeper soil which DOES absorb water well. The effectiveness of a vertical drain depends entirely on what the soil is like where the drain is created, so there's no way to know if it will work until you try. Note: even if you don't penetrate the top soil, just having a hole with gravel will increase the surface area of soil which is exposed to water, thus making more water absorb into the soil than before. But it's still impossibly to know what will happen until you do it.
Water finds the path of least resistance. Nice way to speed up the ground recharge process. I like to finish a drain system with a pop up or grate attached to a shallow vertical drain.
I'm in East Tennessee and have this problem in my yard so bad just outside the front of my house that my house actually floods in heavy rain 😫 2 ft. down is solid rock. do you think this would still work?
I hope to do this in a gravel driveway, we have about 3 muddy swimming pools before we get to our bridge to the highway, if I use a metal perforated pipe and metal drain cover I wonder if this would work? The mud holes take over a week to dry out here
I’m glad I just read this comment. I have a sloping hill that leads onto the back foundation of the house causing water damage to back wall. I am renting and haven’t got a lot for budget, should I still try the vertical to see if it helps? Or am I just wasting my time and should attempt to dig a French?
Tried it. Dug several holes, 4 feet deep. Filled with water quickly, but never percolated. Th e sandy white stuff you have in your desert lawn is quite different than the moist black loam we have over our very dense clay.
My yard don’t have soil like this, mine is mostly clay. I installed 4 of these without the pipe,, just used landscaping cloth and drainage rock, had to go close to 36” deep. It takes about a day to drain where without it took 2-3 days to drain. Do you think it would drain better with the perforated pipe?
This idea does NOT work for clay around the Catawba river in the Charlotte, NC area. I tested by digging a hole 16” deep by 10” wide, then filled it with water from a hose. After 12 hours, only 4” of water was gone. And there was no significant rain around this time either. So, with the ground relatively dry, the water going directly in the hole from the hose stayed there for over 24 hrs. I had the option to pipe the water down hill, so I went with that.
I’m in the early stages of putting in a drain around the footing of my foundation as the water table is coming up through a hole in my basement. I’m curious if I have to fill the trench 6’ deep all the way to the surface with stone or can I back fill with soil. Again I’m not trying to collect surface water. I’m trying to divert the water table. Any advice is much appreciated. I am thinking of using geo fabric and perforated piping all the way to the storm drain in my driveway. I’m going to tie in where the gutters meet the storm drain.
Hi Apple Drains, I have a barrel with a sump pump on the side of my house. Could I remove the pump and fill the barrel with gravel and get the same result? Thank you so much.
I have two questions which one would be betterDrainage Trench Wrap Soil Separator vs Drainage Filter Sock to keep dirt from getting into the pipe? I am still trying to understand how to locate the hard pan can I get help with this please?
Thank you so much! I've been battling a spot on the sidewalk in my backyard where a ton of water wants to pool up, making it unusable. I installed one of these bad boys right next to the sidewalk and all of the water runs right into it. I can use my sidewalk again during and after heavy rainfall! Problem solved!
Hello, i did that but dug 4' deep in northern Indiana. Water is currently sitting in the hole I dug. Im having a hard time finding a solution for my sump pump discharge due to alot of water sitting in the back yard.
After watching your video on vertical drains I put 3 on the side of my house where it usually stays wet, and lo and behold the water was gone and I was able to mow my grass without any ruts. Thanks
Oh yeah, it cost a little more than $10.00, drainage rock goes for $6.00 a bag and I needed a bag and a half per hole, but it works great, Thanks again.
