Fixing a Wet Lawn

[Music] all right we're starting a new job today what what we putting in Timmy a French drain yeah French drain system and then we're going to do a little bit of a drain box right here for Gutter and box and place for the sump pump to dump into that'll be separate line than the French drain system but they get water kind of getting stuck in here I mean it drains out eventually but it's uh um we did this project for him a while back the boulder wall up there and uh this was just all clay from what I remember so nothing really drains they were having a lot of issues before we put that in with water sitting in here so we created a sale for them and it it it kicks it out but like they're having a lot of problems like the springtime melt we started peeling back all the sod hopefully be able to lay that right back over the top just work our way back out and then we're going to Red Dig It Down Deeper put all our materials in and then go from there so sit back and enjoy three solutions well technically four but the fourth solution is the last and least solution so whenever we come into a wet yard we have three solutions that we always offer and the last solution that we typically will look at doing is interior drain tile and there's some companies that that's their first and only solution and I'm going to tell you why in this video we offer it as the last possible solution so let's dive in and see what we got cooking on today's [Music] show all right since I forgot to turn the camera back on while ago we got fabric rolled in got our tile in through the center and now we're putting the Rock in and burrito it so yeah so that's what we're doing getting this to here we're going to try and at least get this done today yeah so that way we only got to do some little camp tomorrow and that's it all right let's just get this out of the way right out of the gate the reason we don't recommend interior drain tile in the very first first place is not because it's a bad option but because our goal is to keep the water from ever infiltrating in the first place if you do everything right on the outside you shouldn't need interior drain TI on the inside now here's the drawback to Interior drain tile on the inside one it's going to be dependent on electricity and when does your electricity go out in a storm so you will need a battery backup system which means you will will need to be testing that battery backup system system to make sure that that battery backup system is always functional and operating okay number two do you really want to have water in your house because isn't water how you get mold now if you do operate an interior drain tile company they will tell you that if they're pumping it out you should not have the water there to create that mold and Milo but you got to be able to get all of that water from all of the different s ources so when you look at a house and you've got you put into your drain tow around the outside the water that's in the center of the house may not be weeping to that interior drain tile fast enough to eliminate the possibility of having that musty moldy mildewy smell that kind of that stifling scent and that creates black mold so our goal is to not let water in in the first place sometimes though it's not doable but we have a three pronged Approach at keeping the water out and we're going to go over that in just a minute all right good morning everybody the uh last night we had gotten most of our trench or actually all of our trench filled in with rock today we're going to fold it over here get the top soil done on it get that filled back in get all that done on then put finish putting this drain box in that we're going to put in over here got still got to dig that trench out and we still got to dig this trench all the way out to probably where the skid is and yeah that's what we got to do today most of this should have been done yesterday but we didn't get started until late so then we worked late into the night then get out of here till like 700 getting all this in and get it in the ground cuz we had Rock on the trailer we wanted to get rid of and whatnot so we wanted to get all our Rock in so that way we didn't need to bring the TR Rock back out but we need to take all this dirt over here that we harvested from digging our trench out customer wanted some dirt but we not as much dirt is what they wanted and so we got to take them sprint some of this around and then we got to take a lot of this out with us just got to get into it get this done then on to the next job so what's that I should be watching the French drain tile man on YouTube well here's the Scoop I've been doing French drain systems for 35 years so what he does and what I do have a lot of overlap and I'm not saying what he's doing is wrong at all but what I'm saying is I don't just limit what I do to one possible solution I always break down every single job into the three simplest parts or the three simplest solutions from easiest to absolutely you really want to keep water out this is what we're going to do over the top and I've done all of them and all of them work in the right circumstances but not one solution isn't going to be a fix off for all different scenarios and another solution to fix all for all the other scenarios so you've got to be able to apply the right easy solution to the scenario and I know I'm getting I'm talking a little bit over your head so we're going to break this down for you here and just make it as simple and easy peasy as possible for you guys to follow along and understand exactly what we're talking about all right good morning everybody back out for the the third day of a job that probably should have taken just one but I digress made a mess yesterday they put in this uh uh non perf for this drain box here that the gutter and the uh sub pump's going to dump into and that's going to run out went to there our French drain is running right along here here and then it comes out here and then we got to extend this further but we had to get beyond that so we didn't Crush that and bunch of other logistic stuff so now we just got to fill it back fill the trench and keep going so all right okay I'm going to pause the video and Rewind it to this section right here never ever ever if you live in a free zone hard pipe a down spout or an in interior drain tile into an exterior drain tile because during the freeze thaw cycle that can back up and destroy the piping and go right into your house and make a bad [Music] mess whoa dirt monkey what are you doing there's no drainage rock around that you're not burring that drain towel that's not meant to capture surface water that's actually a hard pipe off from the downspout which will run parallel but not in the French drain system it's a completely different system although the trenches and the dirt look the same and when I say hard pipe I don't mean that it is physically connected to the house because we have that line of separation for freeze thaw but what I do mean is it's nonperforated designed to 100% capture the water off from that down spout and take it away we don't want to at pipe in this Zone because we just don't want any extra water we're going to direct that water down and away from the [Music] structures all right we're all wrapped up for the day we got French drain in backyard there you can see it goes around the corner comes through here then we have a drain box that comes underneath here then our French R goes from here into non perf we have a daylight for drain box here and then the French drain Daylights all the way down here here and then yeah so anytime that I go into a customer's house I I always try to provide the simplest possible solution when they have a wet yard and I always look at their existing grades so if the house is here and they have a negative pitched grade like this to the house the first possible easy solution is just to change that grade bring up some non-permeable soil and Pitch the ground away from it when I say non-permeable I'm talking about clay okay now clay has a great application and Clay can also be super detrimental deep depending how you apply that clay all right so we always look at regrading because that's the easiest thing we can possibly do that's solution number one solution number two you're seeing today that's a French drain and a lot of times what we like to do is regrade and then incorporate a French drain into that unless the grades are already good enough that we can just use a French drain and then when we roll into that French drain mentality we look at all right we're going to be able to capture the water about that far below grade but anything that's below that elevation we're not capturing so is being able to take this top grade and capture all this water to this point applicable or do we need to do something more so solution number two is confirm the grades are good and then install a French drain okay I didn't flick you off but I figured some of you guys would enjoy that solution three this is the most invasive solution you can possibly do and we've done this multiple times and it's hyper successful and this is where clay can be your friend and Clay can be your enemy you've got a wet basement you're sick of it you want any you're going to do anything possible to keep your basement dry this is what you're going to do got your house here your basement is here you are going to dig a wedge on the outside of your house it's going to be well I'm going to say twoot wide okay we just go bucket withd it depends on the the circumstance but we're going to dig all the way down to the foundation of that basement to the lowest possible point below grade we are then going to remove all of that soil a lot of times that soil that we're removing is clay clay is not your friend in this situation clay acts like Play-Doh and traps and holds water okay so you got this clay holding this water right up against the side of your house and you're getting mold and mildew in and it sucks we don't want that so we dig this all the way down to your footing now your footing is little L-shaped like that bing bing bing just like this we dig and remove that all the way below your footing hike that away throw that out we then water proof your wall so we apply a waterproof membrane there's lots of different options out there lots of different ways you can waterproof your wall we tucko the wall make sure that there's no cracks no holes in the foundation itself make sure that that Foundation is solid and good to go then we put the waterproofing membrane on then we back fill with sand we put drain tile in at the bottom we've got to have an outlet for that drain tile okay we got to make sure that we either are getting that water out through physical means or through natural gravity means but one way shape or form any water that falls from Mother Nature is going to hit into this Sandy uh free draining material and go down into this drain tile and we're going to exit it but now Clay comes back into the picture because Clay is our friend top of the foundation is here we've got this nice chunk of free draining material that won't hold moisture I think you can still hear me Frankie's busy and then we're going to take a wedge of clay and put it on the top just on the top the reason we put a wedge of Clay on the top and we'll make that 12 in 24 in it depends on the circumstances of that job um the reason we put this wedge of clay right here is so that any water Mother Nature decides to dump on us from above hits that clay runs away hits the clay runs away anything that permeates through that clay will then go down into the non into the into the free draining zone so it's not going to sit against your foundation of your wall like which is your enemy hit the drain tile and be gone but if we do this part right the drain tile should never have to be activated my shoulder is getting sore from holding it there so that's solution one is grading solution two is French drain making sure that the grades are good enough to handle the French drain solution three is full-fledged waterproofing and all three of these Solutions go from least invasive and least expensive to most invasive and most expensive and it's just a matter of how bad do you want to get rid of the water and how big of a problem is water in your area hope that makes sense hope you guys enjoyed the video that's it for me on this one and uh I'll catch you guys on another one God bless and go get him and if you're wondering what happened to my nose I'm just going to tell you don't go stick in your nose where it doesn't belong as a poock sometimes you learn that the hard way God bless go get him you guys customer is going to sprit a little seed and whatnot and it's going to look good but on to the next one n [Music]