New French Drain

 Our home was built on a terrace,. An elderly neighbor once told us that a creek, which ran along our back fence separating the neighbor's yard from ours, was filled-in to make 'better yards'. Every Spring that stream resurfaces to one extent or another. Two years ago, we dug a French drain along the back fence, which slopes down hill, in an attempt to 'dry out' our yard. It worked for the most part until this year.

 Since the beginning of  this Summer, we have been attempting to rid our yard of the unusual amount of water caused by the excess rains, which started in the Spring and continued through the Fall. The yard became a swamp making it impossible to mow the grass. Fortunately the neighbors were having the same problem, though not to our extent.

Thus with the help of Tommy, Dan, Mike, Zach and myself, we managed to get about half of the 110' trench dug from the front left corner toward the back right of our lot.

The part in the picture where the stones are lain is how far we got in our digging on that day.


Even without the stone the trench helped direct the water, which was coming from our neighbor's house, past our house. When the hurricane came last month, that water did not effect the amount of water we got in our basement, WHEW! Though the sump pumps ran non-stop for about 30 hours anyway. Good thing our electricity was not turned off like our neighbors about four houses away! And we still had gas to cook and heat our house in spite of the gas line braking less than a mile from us! The Lord sure blessed us which gave us the opportunity to bless others less fortunate!

A couple of weeks ago, Elder Stratton and Elder Tibits completed the digging, MUCH to our relief and gratitude!!! Hurray!!

We had not put pipe and cloth in the French Drain along the back fence, only stone. So when the yard drain met the back fence drain a large pool of water collected making it very apparent that we need to open up the back drain along the fence and place pipe and cloth in it to create better drainage.

sigh.....

Saturday, Dad and I drilled holes in the pipes to collect the water, rolled out the cloth over the trench, placed a layer of small stones on top of the cloth, placed the pipe on-top of the stones and rolled the cloth around the stones and pipe. Then we filled the trench to just below the surface of the yard, to allow room to put topsoil and grass seed over the trench in the Spring. 


After 3 runs to the stone quarry, Dad decided to order 3tons of river rock to be delivered next Friday and dumped in our driveway, in preparation to fill the rest of the trench next Saturday. 

Our uphill neighbors are planning on helping us on Saturday. This will gratefully benefit their home as well as ours. Working together on this project has been a great way to show our devotion to Jesus Christ by serving others needs while fulfilling our own!

This is where his sump pump runs into the drain, blessing both of our families!! He will be digging the trench which leads from his house to the drain (a short distance) on Saturday as well.