Building a French Drain

Scuse' my French


A belated happy new year to you all. Things have been busy both on the homestead and off, hence the lack of posts. Anyway, lets get into it.

One of the problems that was identified by the builder when we bought the house was the lack of drainage under it. The water was coming off the hill and seeping under the foundation. Whilst there is no damage, he told us it was a priority to get a french drain installed as it would eventually become a problem if it wasn't rectified. I asked the builder how much it would cost to get someone to do it and he said about $3000. Having no desire to spend the holiday fund on the moving of dirt, I enrolled in Youtube University.

So this is the back of the house. To the left, just out of the picture, is the water tank. The water seeps down under the house from this side.


I started digging from where I thought it would be the most difficult at the front of the house. Thankfully there was no rock, but the soil was so compressed, it may as well have been rock. The tools for the job were the Saxon Mattock and the Saxon Square Mouth Post Hole Shovel. I'm happy to report that the mattock held up to the job, and whilst it has been filed down somewhat, it didn't bend or crack as other brands would have done. For $20, I'm really impressed with the durability of it.



I then cut around to the back of the house, right up to the water pump. This job was slightly delayed as I decided to trim a small amount of my thumb off whilst trying to pry open an apricot seed with a survival knife. I'll spare you the photos, but the trip to New Norfolk Community Medical Centre was good driving practice for Shannon in a stressful situation.


Once the trench had been dug, I poured in a small layer of blue stone upon which to rest the drain pipe, then placed the pipe on top of it, covered it in more blue stone and then buried it in the earth.


I ran the pipe out about 4 meters from the house and dug a deep hole for it to run into. I'd rather keep the water on the property if possible. My hope is that it will seep into the earth underneath the Back To Eden food forest. The soil is a lot softer away from the house so it should be alright.



So that was pretty much it for the drain. I've seen them done a lot more elaborately, but we don't get a heap of water, just enough to be a pain. 

Onto the next project!
Location: Lachlan TAS 7140, Australia

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