Dirtwork term
Geotextile
also called: filter fabric, drainage fabric, geofabric
Woven or non-woven synthetic fabric that lets water through but holds soil back.
Geotextile is the fabric you see wrapped around a French drain, laid under riprap, or sandwiched between layers of base rock under a road. It's engineered to be permeable to water but not to silt and small soil particles. The job is to keep the dirt and the drainage material separated so the drainage material doesn't clog.
Two families: woven (stronger, used under roads and behind retaining walls for soil reinforcement) and non-woven (more flexible, used as a filter around drains and under riprap). Both come in different weights and tear strengths.
Leaving fabric out of a French drain is the single most common reason cheap drains fail. The stone clogs with silt, water stops passing through, and within a couple of years the drain might as well be solid dirt.
Hiring this done?
Geotextile 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 geotextile comes up on a job
It goes in when you are building over soft ground: a driveway on clay that pumps, or a pad across a wet spot. There the base rock has to stay rock instead of sinking into the mud below. The fabric is what keeps the two layers from mixing.
Related terms
Other words that come up alongside this one
French Drain
A gravel-filled trench with perforated pipe at the bottom that collects sub-surface water and routes it to daylight.
Riprap
Loose stone placed on a slope or shoreline to absorb wave or storm energy and prevent erosion.
Sub-grade
The natural soil surface that supports everything you build on top of it, pad, road base, slab.
Select Fill
Imported soil chosen for known compaction and stability properties, used where native soil isn't suitable.
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