If you live in a wet area or know that your yard is prone to flooding then install a perforated drain pipe is a smart way to make sure that water doesn’t settle near your foundation and cause problems in your yard. Perforated drain pipes work by allowing water into them from holes along the length of the pipe. This water then travels through the pipe, making it perfect to use for keeping certain areas of your property dry. Installing a perforated drain pipe is an easy thing to do if you want to tackle the job yourself. Just follow the steps below and enjoy your drier yard the next time it rains!
Dig Your Trench
Always call to have your utilities marked before you do any sort of digging to avoid accidentally cutting any lines. Make sure that the trench you are planning to dig will take water away from your house to avoid any future problems. Your trench will need to be two times as wide as the drainage pipe you are going to use and deep enough to keep the pipe below the frost line. While this can be accomplished with a shovel, renting a backhoe will make this part of the job easier.
Create the Slope
Using a sledgehammer, drive wooden stakes into the trench four feet apart. Tie a string to the stake where the pipe will begin and run it, wrapping it around each stake. Making sure the string is level between the first two stakes, push it down half an inch on the second. Continue this down your trench to create a gentle slope that will keep the water moving from your home. If you don’t create enough of a slope for your perforated drain pipe then the water will simply sit in the pipe, causing future problems. Making sure that there is a gentle slope to keep the water moving is imperative if you don’t want to cause any problems for yourself down the line.
Level the Soil and Add Gravel and Landscape Fabric
Using a tamper, pack down the dirt in the trench to make it firm. Make sure that the distance from the dirt to the string is the same on each stake with a measuring tape. Add or remove soil to keep this distance the same so that your pipe will lay flat, yet at a slope. You don’t want any hills or valleys in your pipe that will trap the water. Lay landscape fabric and then two inches of gravel in the trench. Make sure that you have enough landscape fabric so that you can wrap it around the drainage pipe once you install it. The landscape fabric is there to ensure that soil and other debris doesn’t work its way into the gravel. If you have dirt and other debris in your gravel then it is easy for it to get into the perforated drain pipe and cause problems with the water flow.
Lay the Pipe
Lay the perforated drainage pipe on the gravel. Now is the time to comply with local codes and, if you need to, wrap more material around it to keep soil from entering the pipe and blocking the water. It’s always a good idea to check before you begin a project like this to make sure that you have the necessary materials to keep your work up to code in your area. You don’t want your hard work to be installed incorrectly.
Complete Installation
Once you have your pipe in the trench you will need to add more gravel to the top of it. The depth that you are looking for is between four and six inches. Take the ends of the landscape fabric that you left loose and wrap them up and over the gravel and the pipe. Using dirt to hold the landscape fabric in place, work your way along the trench, wrapping the pipe and securing it with shovelfuls of dirt. You can now go back and add more dirt to fill the trench to be level with the rest of your yard. If you have sod in your yard you can easily install that over your trench or seed it and wait for the grass to grow.
When you are deciding your route that you want the water to take away from your home or yard, make sure that you choose the most direct route possible. You want to make it easy for the water to travel along the pipe. Perforated drain pipes are a great underground system that will help keep your home dry for years to come. If you have water left underneath your house after a storm, a pool deck that drips water onto your yard or property, new landscapes in your yard, or if you need irrigation for trees, a perforated drain pipe may be the answer you are looking for.
