what's best way to construct french drain and dry well?
Answers:
well, i dont know about dry wells, but for a french drain, you need to dig a trench, usualy about 2 feet deep. the trench must always go deeper so if their is a slight uphill grade before you dump you have to dig deeper. lay corigated plastic tubing along the bottom of the trench and fill the trench all the way up to the top with round stone (round sand stone gravel). the tubing should dump out somewhere. we live in the suburbs and ours runs to the cerb and dumps out on the street. a friend of mine ran one in his yard(he has a double lot) his french drain system was about the size of his lot, and it runs non stop all through summer. we had a lot of rain this week so it is dumping tons of water. it is amazing how much they colect.
you can have your drain shalower if you have to, but they are much beter if they are around 2 feet under ground. more water is colected rather than seeping under it. I dont know what a dry well is, but I am guessing that it is something that the drain runs into. if that is it, you would want to dig a large hole( around 4x4x4) and run the tube in the hole with it curled around to distribute the water. you would want to put it somewhere in a low area. if it is a very low area, use a bigger, deeper hole. fill it completly with gravel. the graval is nice because the water can flow through it freely, and it doesnt cost that much per ton. we bought 23 tons for our camp and spread it all around the ground to get rid of puddles in the yard.
dont get lazy with it because you know you dont want to have to dig it all up again if it clogges. do a good job and you will have a nice dry lot.
Other answers: