Could use some input from any french drain guru’s on here.
I have a customer with a french drain system around their house that drains into the street. Their gutter downspouts appear to be tied into the drain system, as well. When I was looking it over today, I found several dome and flat collectors semi-buried in the landscaping. It hasn’t rained here for a couple of days, but one of the drains is trickling water into the curb. I ran a 25′ plumbing snake into it from the street and didn’t feel any resistance, but definitely turned the trickle from clear to muddy.
They have a problem with water in the crawlspace and I suspect that the french drain is probably silted up. Can these drains be flushed out – or is that just asking for trouble? I have no idea of how the drains were built so I’m a little nervous about just blasting them with a jet nozzle on a garden hose.
Replies
Maybe I am wrong but, The french drains that I have dealt with do not drain into the street. They are a big pit you dig and fill full of gravel to allow the water to drain on your property.The drain you are speaking about sounds like a day light drain.
Dave, if the gutters are draining into the street, it may be clogged from debris from the roof, shingle granules, leaves and what not.
Around here (Roanoke, VA) houses that were built in the 1930s commonly had roof drains that went to the street. At present, they're banned, the runoff adds too much to the storm sewer system.
The ones I've seen here are made of cast iron (at least, the lead-in at the house is). Your 25 foot snake might not have been long enough, depending on the length of the run to the street.
Around here, it's called a french drain. The house is less than 10 years old and the drain system was put in sometime after the house was new. It looks like it circles the house and discharges into the street through 3" plastic pipes that pass thru the curb face. I suspect that it's perforated plastic pipe with tees that rise to the surface and have screens to serve as collectors. Part of the system runs beside the house under a sidewalk that was finished to create shallow basins with collectors in the bottoms.
Since several of the collectors were partially buried (some may be completely covered), and I'm certain that the downspouts also feed into it, I'm sure that it's silted in - at least partially.
My question is whether or not flushing it would be a viable way to clean it out - or cause more trouble than I want to get into.