Dirtwork term
French Drain
also called: sub-surface drain, footing drain
A gravel-filled trench with perforated pipe at the bottom that collects sub-surface water and routes it to daylight.
A French drain is a trench filled with washed stone, with a perforated pipe wrapped in filter fabric running along the bottom. Water that sits in the soil or runs along an impermeable layer drains into the stone, enters the pipe through the perforations, and exits somewhere it can leave the property.
Used for foundation moisture, yard wetness that swales can't reach, and as a footing drain on new builds. In East Texas clay, French drains are usually the right answer for chronic standing water that won't dry out between rains. Trench depth matters: too shallow and the drain doesn't intercept the water table you're trying to lower.
Common failure modes: no fabric (the stone clogs with silt within a year), no daylight (water collects in the pipe and has nowhere to go), undersized pipe (4-inch is the residential standard, 6-inch when the flow is real).
Hiring this done?
French Drain comes up on drainage jobs all over East Texas.
If you're reading up because a project is coming, we'll walk your site and show you exactly how this applies to your dirt. Free estimate, no obligation.
When you need it
When french drain comes up on a job
You reach for a french drain when the water is in the ground, not just on top of it. The signs are a strip of yard that never dries, a wall that weeps, a crawlspace that smells of damp. A swale moves what runs across the surface; this pulls down what sits in the soil.
Services where this shows up
We use french drain on
Related terms
Other words that come up alongside this one
Swale
A shallow, vegetated ditch shaped to carry surface water away from a structure or down a property line.
Geotextile
Woven or non-woven synthetic fabric that lets water through but holds soil back.
Daylight
Where a drain pipe or channel exits to the open surface, water has to daylight somewhere it can leave the property.
Sub-grade
The natural soil surface that supports everything you build on top of it, pad, road base, slab.
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