hey good morning Chuck here with apple
drains today I'd like to show you how
you can install a French drain all by
yourself you don't need any special
material yes I'm using a trencher but
you don't have to have a trencher you
could dig this by hand materials less
than 100 bucks total time about an hour
and a half so basically we're going to
put a trench we'll have to go underneath
of this deck the deck here because on
the other side of the
deck
over here this is where it really
floods so we'll put a trench under the
deck connect to this trench which will
go out underneath of the fence and then
over down into the Calvert Okay so we've
got our trench down in here these are
rain barrels that are used to catch
water and do laundry but um you can see
how wet and muddy it is over here this
is sand and of course it does go down
but every time it rains it just floods
up all up under underneath of the deck
so we've got our
trench and it runs on down need to clean
it out here where we've made the turns
but I was able to get underneath of the
walkway can see it goes underneath there
and
turns and over here on the other
side we've got our trench going out and
under the fence I was also able
to get on the other side of the fence
let's take a look real quick there was
new sod later over here new
Culvert so I had to be really careful as
I brought the machine across but we're
going to discharge right down here this
is quite low and you can see the trench
goes up and under the fence so once we
clean it out we'll bring our pipe out we
might come around or just go through the
side right here over to this corner but
for right now I think that'll work
really good I mean really good
okay so we're laying our pipe down in
the trench usually I just step it down
with my
foot it's okay if there's roots that
won't make any
difference and if you've got a slight
uphill rise to it it's still not going
to make it any difference to your drain
at
all you come to the
corner you got to pull it
tight and push it down
in you can see we're going underneath of
the deck and we'll come up on the other
side here we are on the other
side sorry trying to do this with one
hand and my
foot push it down in your trench and
again you'll go right through your roots
your trencher cut those roots really
well and just continue stepping it down
into the bottom of your trench you can
see we're going under the
fence
but there's our trench it's kind of hard
to see it's so bright out here we' got
our pipe laid down in the trench it goes
underneath of the walkway and all the
way around the
RV here we are on the other side same
thing it's just going through a an area
of of
Palmetto which really are tough to get
through so once you've got your pipe
installed remember that we just used the
corrugated and we bent it up to make a
90 we need to put some weight on here so
we're throwing some sand and dirt here
just to hold this pipe down and now we
can go ahead and cover the rest of this
line all the way out to the street
easiest way to cover that I found is to
turn your rake upside down and just push
your soil back into your trench it's
heavy but if you use your body weight
it'll push it right
over if it's too heavy then you're going
to have to move some of it with the
shovel this is wet sand and it is heavy
but you can
see the rake pushes it right over on the
TR a lot of rain hurricane season coming
it's always good to get your drainage in
before the really wet season comes so
out here at the end of our line we're
just going to cut it off we can always
come back and add more to this and go
further down into the covert but I think
this will work
good
so just pull your sand
back and you can see it just comes right
out on top of the ground we need to
throw some sand on it though to hold it
down this corrugated stuff's great but
it's like a slinky so if you want to see
if your system works before you put your
grate on the top of your drain you can
stick a garden hose in
there you can see water coming in there
really nice now I don't use a garden
hose actually but I use rain water I
collect it in rain barrels and I use a
pump because there's no water out here
on the property so we have to use all
the rain water for cleaning that's why
see the suds down there because I've
done some laundry here this morning in
one of the tubs and the pump has just
got some soap on it
but don't forget if you've got a
girlfriend or wife no matter how hard
you work they appreciate if you pick
them a nice little
flower hey this is Chuck with apple
drains reminding you that if you believe
you can do something I guarantee you can
do it have a great day
n