Ooo La La! The French Drain Project

Although my tiny ditches were working to divert water away from the barn, they weren't a permanent solution.  A French drain, or area drain, definitely is.  Since Flea is in the midst of a health crisis, I can't really move the mules out of the way, so only half of the project is on the docket at this point.  This wasn't something I could do myself, so I had to hire someone with a tractor who knew what they were doing.  Our neighbor's son was just that person.

The drain system begins at the fence, where the water tends to pool the most, and follows the foundation around the corner and down the hay room access side and out to the edge of the woods.  It just so happens that the land at that point slopes downward, which is a perfect scenario for a drainage exit. 

The contractor started by digging a trench about three feet deep, pitching it down little by little as he went.  Luckily the water line is 4 feet below the surface, so that wasn't an issue, but the electric line was a little less deep.  Good thing the contractor was the son of the electrician who installed the line, so they were able to find it with no problem and dig below it.

He then filled the trench with 3/8 crushed stone, laid the drain pipe on top of that, and very gently filled the trench with more stone.  The stone allows the water to filter down to the pipe, which has slits throughout the length of it.  The slits allow the water to enter the pipe, which then directs it along the length and out the end of the drain if there is an excessive amount of water all at once.  The plastic pipe is covered in a "sock"; a nylon type of material that allows water to pass through it, but keeps silt and sand from plugging up the slits. 

The drain was finished just in time for some torrential downpours to test it out.  We've been lacking rain and are teetering on drought conditions, so this was a welcomed event.  I went out between thunder storms to see how things were holding up.  There was minimal ponding in front of the run in door, and some standing water along the driveway, well away from the barn.

By this morning, even after a night of on and off storms and showers, there was no more standing water.

Hopefully next summer I'll have the paddock squared away to the point that we can move the mules and install the same drain around the rest of the barn perimeter, but for now this a massive improvement.  Now I can get some topsoil on that area in front of the door and plant some grass.