What's the back yard like? Can you continue the trench around the house to drain around back?

If not, your best bet is probably to rip it out and build a proper French Drain. Judging by that slope, it'll need to be a right big one. 1,000 cubic feet or more.

If it is not working, dig it up and replace with some of the premade PVC French drain pipe.

I'll try to remember to snag a picture later, but from the box drain to the backyard (side of house) it's a pretty good slope then once it hits the back yard it kinda levels but then slopes for 50 or so more feet pretty good.

The drain here goes all the way back a few hundred feet and on the way is connected to another downspout and I am not sure how they did it and I don't even know if I want to look lol

Like it is now it will always clog, that gravel works like a filter catching all the dirt.

French drain will help to some extent. The soil/gravel over it should be below the level of the path so the water doesn't spill over the edge.

Other solution would be to put a smooth half pipe along the path down to the drain, without filling it with gravel (some big stones if wife insists). Water has to flow freely. Drain will clog so it will have to be cleaned on regular basis.

Or 4” sock pipe with a stone aggregate for drainage through.

If they go through the work of digging up, is there a way to deal with the excess sediment at the end where the trench meets the driveway? Seems to be the worst spot for the finer sediment and then gets introduced to the entire system from the start.

Tear it all out and start over?

You want a full pipe with some sort of wrap material to keep sediment out of of it... if a 'french drain' is the desired result.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_drain
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_drain#/media/File%3AFrench_drain_diagram.jpg

Where is the sediment coming from? It is not falling out of the sky. It looks like the same material that is used for the current “drain”.

Also, where exactly are you wanting the water to discharge?

The big sloped driveway I'd presume

If you dig it up consider adding one or two clean outs as insurance

That sloped driveway situation is.....unfortunate....for water management.

Check out this YouTube channel for some ideas on a more permanent solution, this guy is pretty thorough/arguably overkill but it depends on how much you can DIY. I think I've seen him deal with a front yard/driveway/walkway issue very similar to yours.

https://www.youtube.com/@GCFD/videos

I agree. Where is the sediment coming from???

For the sake of clarity you mean "clean outs" as in one of those attachments that you can open up and clean the debris out right? (I know it's probably obvious but I want to be sure lol)

I agree with you. A half pipe or some other open trench to carry away the water and sediment. It should go directly to your catch basin, which you will have to clean out whenever it get filled with sediment. The open trench should be set below the edge of the walkways. The Georgia clay and silt soil will clog any filter cloth around a buried drain pipe. The trench should be open to allow for easy cleanout.

Awesome thank you! Yeah. It's odd because it really doesn't bother my garage much when it rains. Our neighborhood has those little sloped curbs so most of the water is coming from rain landing on the driveway/yard.

I'll check this guy out I don't think I've seen him out thank you!

This, then put the rocks back on top

French drain through your driveway so the pool has a place to go and any drain water coming down your driveway won’t flow into your garage. It would start where you drew the blue circle and said it pools

Yep. Sock pipe is what you want. It's not easy, but it's worth it.

Looking at that slope, he's gonna have to put a basin in as well. That drain box is 10" deep and fills up really fast. the PVC "french drains" only work if they have somewhere to take the water.

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Yes, something like this Clean out

Everyone has a good start, corrugated sock pipe inside french drain etc etc. Thats great, but the water doesn't have anywhere to be stored until it can disperse.

With that slope, and your downspout connected you're going to need to dig a basin if you cant get rid of the water somewhere else. NDS makes a really easy to use product called a flow-well that I've used hundreds of times with great results. It basically just lets you dig out a big hole and it'll hold like 50 gallons by itself. You're still going to have to wrap it in good weed fabric, I would always just dig a big hole and then line the hole, drop in the flow well, and backfill inside the fabric with 4" rock to make an even bigger basin.

That water is just gonna fill up a french drain that doesn't have anywhere to dump to, they aren't magical unfortuantely.

I don't really have any help but the lawn looks great, bro

The 20ft grass verge immediately next to it?

Why fix it? Bought a new edger you can't wait to use? Sidewalk isn't sufficiently overrun by grass?

It's all running downhill. And it'll never stop. So you either design a system to work with it, or plan to clear it out every so often. Likely some combination.

Why wouldn't the grass verge hold back the sediment? Just trying to understand. Most grass locks in the soil.

So they left you with a French drain and you are not happy with how it flows??? Take out the small pebbles and rocks clean them and replace. It should be fine they didn’t have fabric 1000 years ago either.

Yep. Keeps pipe clean and clear.

It's half of a corrugate pipe so it doesn't actually do anything.

We prefer to have these rocks not overrun by soil and weeds, and to do the job the prior owners presumably attempted to make it do is all.

Thanks! It's sod.

You should have seen it before when I tried to fix the lawn..or at least how it looked before I tried to DIY it..lol

Would it be fine to have another small box drain or something similar at the beginning of the driveway (maybe a channel drain if it can work) and have it connect to the current box drain and the downspout?

From where this box drain is I believe it connects to another one or two downspouts and travels down a pretty steep slope and off into my backyard in a area we don't use. It currently can handle the water it does get even when this rock area is working so it may not be overrun..maybe.

Ah okay just making sure! That would be doable. I know we have some around already but I don't know if they are for the drains or something else.

Oh gotcha, I misread another comment and thought you didn’t have anywhere to run the water. You can throw a drain box in, they make “socks” for them that are going to fill up pretty quickly with sediment but it’ll do the job for one area. You’d still have to connect it with solid pipe to the other run

Yeah so for the driveway it's got a "lip" I can take a pic if needed. It's one of those neighborhoods that has a half-pipe shaped edging at the end of everyone's yard that runs along and empties into storm drains wherever they are. I don't think I have ever seen water spill over that, and then the top of my driveway also has a "hump" to it. Our driveway is actually shitty we don't even drive down it because it's too steep and short lol.

I don't actually have an issue with water getting into my garage unless the downpour is really heavy and even then it isn't too bad. On the other side of my driveway we have a downspout that goes down and into another section of our backyard, but it's currently sitting higher than the driveway due to terrain but could be fixed. I don't know if cutting into the concrete would be more trouble than it's worth honestly.

I actually did some work on the other side of the driveway and used this rock system to drain it away. It was a lot of dirt and clay so it kinda stayed mucky. I was hoping the rain would help wash it away but that didn't happen lol

House and walkway are beautiful. I'd relax and be happy this is the worst you've got. Needless to say, bigger problems will come up eventually. Sincerely, 100-year old house owner.

Lol thank you! If anything I'd be okay with at least figuring out how to keep the rocks cleaner and free from weeds.

Every one is giving complicated solutions that won't fix the underlying problem. Nothing about this drain is inherently flawed from drainage perspective. Will I clog maybe but most of it looks fine and free if clogs the issue with the pooling by the drive way is that the area in the blue circle is a low spot. What probably happened is that water flowing to that spot and then draining slowly and eventually pooling cause that portion of the drain/driveway/sidewalk to settle so it is a localized low spot. (either that or it was graded incorrectly initially) Finding a way to elevate that area relative to the surrounding area will fix your flow issues. You could also reslope the whole drain if that's easier.

People saying replace it with a French Drain don't actually know what a French Drain is or what they are talking about because this is technically a type of French Drain.

I just put in a new cement pad driveway, and at the transition from cement to aggregate I put a perforated pipe in front of the slab with drain rock, fabric sleeve, some extra drain fabric, and a clean out. Works great so far and I can keep it clean with that clean out.

You can redo the French drain network. Add the 2nd box. That will help for sure.

I'm a retired contractor and had several jobs somewhat similar though clearly not exactly... IME The best long term solution was to re landscape, redo some of the concrete and put a permanent drain in a welled out concrete section with a cleanout. The cleanout is really important.

I also don't hate the idea of putting in a little retaining wall and if you want to diy it, it's not as hard as you might think.

Good luck

Yeah NDS ez pipe

That pipe sock will not work with Georgia red clay.

When you are in clay soils, it is best to use astm c33 sand (concrete sand) instead of gravel. You would simply redig the trench and replace the pipe and gravel, no need for geotextile. The same system is used in dams. Their solution wasn’t too bad, you could probably fix it by digging a narrow trench between the gravel and grass and filling with the sand I just mentioned.

You pictures and description aren’t clear as to what the problem is. Does the pipe not drain anymore? Can you not clean the pipe out? Which way does this drain? It sounds like you have an issue with an outlet that freely drains. Make sure the land is clearly draining away from the outlet. The drainage sock thing others mentioned is for amateurs, not engineers. A graded filter around the perforated pipe is what you need.

The good news is their drain pipe worked, the bad news is it got filled with very fine sediment that a proper filter would prevent from clogging.

you have gotten some ok advice but look at a trench/channel drain. The previous owner installed one and it is kind of fun to watch the water flow.

yeah the design of that house is awful tbh.

French drain.

It's grass, not concrete.

Did someone say french drains?

This guy's channel shows so many different situations. And he takes the time to explain why he does what he does.

EDIT: and someone already linked his channel. But it is worst doing it twice.

Corrugated is the WORST to move water.

Yeah, I'd ditch all of the current rock and sand and just fill in drainage stones

Make it a trench?

This isn’t helpful to your situation but i would add some pretty crystal and gemstones ✨

Tbh, I'd have just dug up the rocks, filled it with some nice absorbent soil, and plant a row of flowers. If the trench is particularly deep, keep a layer of large rocks at the bottom, soil and flowers on top.

>It is not falling out of the sky

You know that stuff called dust that accumulates on everything? It's not just spontaneously coming into existence... Now imagine that over hundreds of square feet all being washed to a specific point by rain over and over and over again...

If it's not working, it's working just as it would work if you removed it all and filled it in.

Think to yourself "Do I really want to finish this project" before you start any project.

Heh, "sock pipe" heh hehhehe

If it’s stopping the sediment from getting into the pipe, doesn’t the sock clog? The sediment has to be somewhere.

This is probably gonna sound like you're making a bigger trench, but hear me out: shovel it.

Yes it will. Youvneed rocks around it. I'd dig it up, put landscaping fabric in bi of rock pvc more rock and the wrap it and dirt on top.

Silly goose, you’re thinking “pipe sock”

Heh. Giggity

Here's what I would do

1.dig down 10 inches the whole length

2. Deal with excavated material

3. Install big o with sock ( make sure you have a gradual slope towards your outflow point)

4. Get some 3/4 clear gravel fill hole leaving 2 inches to grade.

5. Landscaper fabric on top of clear gravel

6. But some nice river rock or pea gravel for the last 2 inches.

And if you want some type of barrier the plastic edging is really good for containing whatever rock you throw in there. Hope this helps.

EZ pipe is crap.

See the OPs comment. It is coming from other work performed.

Not really. If that was the case then everything would naturally flatten and level over time.

Hey yeah let me try to explain!

So the trench here is simply rocks and a corrugate pipe, but the pipe is cut horizontally so it's basically just a "u" shaped pipe.

The rocks lead to that box drain and don't go into it unless there's enough force pushing it because 1. It pools at the beginning and 2. I think the trench may be lower than the box drain.

What's better? Just doing it yourself?

I almost wonder if it would be worth just extending the mulch bed to take over this trench while keeping the rocks there and covering them in fabric.

I am very thankful not all of my yard is made out of red clay and only some.

We live in California in the Central Valley where it is generally flat. Our soil is sandy and drains very well.

We don't have rain gutters on the house. We have a metal roof.

I left an empty trashcan in the driveway, happened to have it under the eave of the roof.

After a day of rain, the plastic trash can had 24" of water in it. It all makes total sense when you think about it, that the rain that falls on the roof has to go somewhere. None the less, I was amazed.

So, here are my thoughts on your problem...

The steep driveway is draining into the corrugated pipe covered with stones. It follows the walkway, then the planting bed in front of the house, and towards the lower area in the distance in the first picture.

Not exactly sure where you are, you say NW Georgia. Chattanooga is close. The annual rainfall in Chattanooga is 55 inches. I'll assume your driveway is 20 ft. by 30 ft. That means that, over a year, you have 2,750 cubic feet of water flowing through that drain. That is 20,570 gallons a year, on average. That is a lot of water. I'm not a specialist in this area (drainage), but you Need to become one, or find a very good one locally.

What I read into your description makes me think that you may not have appreciated the magnitude of your problem that they previous owners were faced with when they installed this system.

PS: I have not even mentioned all the water coming off the roof via the downspout.

You've got some good advice in this forum.

Sorry all I can do is put some numbers on the magnitude of the problem.

All the dirt and clay may have gone into the drainage system, mucking it up.

You might have shot yourself in the foot, amigo.

I thought the same. Then I looked closely at the first picture, and it appears they are trying to get it to drain towards the lower area in the distance.

I mean it’s more the gigantic immovable hill that’s creating the problem, not the design of the house

Nah it's fine. It looks worse than usual but I did confirm it works as it usually does which is meh

Nuke the entire site from orbit - it's the only way to be sure.

Let me run this by the misses first...

Use a strip drain instead of the big EZ drains or perf pipe. They collect water better and have a smaller profile so they’re easier to install

Honestly this would be my move too. As far as I can tell from OPs comments, it's not really working or solving any problems now (please let me know if I missed something though, it doesn't sound like OP has water management issues even with that yard slope aside from this drain pipe clogging). Why go through a ton of work and potentially multiple fixes and digging up the yard to get this set up to continue to not really do much of anything? I'd pull the whole thing out and just let the grass move up to the edge of the sidewalk.

What makes it not easy? The excavation?

• Get a pipe that that isn't cut in half.
• Dig the rocks up, shake them off, and put them in buckets.
• Check the whole is deep enough, dig down if not. Probably want 6-8" at 15 degree slope to exit
• use water to wash your rocks, the dirt, dust, and fines can clog your cloth and youre in for real work ahead, so might as well do it the best you can.
• lay down the magical cloth, pack it a bit, and confirm the grade to the exit.
• put down an inch or two of rock and compact. Lay your pipe. He he... Check the grade, this is the last easy chance.
• pack in rock, firmly, around the pipe, don't crush the pipe.
• firmly add an inch over the pipe, add another layer of magical cloth.
• add the rest of your rock over the top cloth. Compact every inch. Be careful until the rock can protect the drain tile pipe.
• drink

Seems simple enough to just lower the box drain then?

It is clearly a bad french drain. (or an attempt at a DIY french drain).

An attempt where they forgot you are supposed to install the pipe upside down.

Seriously, if they just flipped the pipe it would probably work well enough.

The idea of the underside is to remain clear, so as water rises it can easily drain away down the kept-clear section of path.

In this instance, they put the pipe right-side up, and filled it with rocks (???)

Yes, most french drains use a full pipe with holes in the bottom - but the half-pipe should theoretically work well enough if installed correctly and in a manner that it doesn't flip upside down like this.

Hmm, if that is the case, that corner with the driveway needs a catch basin and the drain should follow that natural drainage line in the grass.

So, that U shaped pipe is supposed to be installed like an n instead of a u

That way; it has a big gap underneath that cannot fill with rocks (and sediment).

You put rocks underneath and rocks above and it becomes the french drain it was always meant to be!

As the water level rises above the bottom of the n shaped pipe, it flows into the pipe and hopefully down the hill toward the box drain.

I'm not an expert. Perhaps they developed a drainage problem and this is how the fixed it.

A drain following the contour of the drainage line in the grass would be a larger project. Makes sense, though.

I would dig it all out 4” below the drain pipe and gravel, perforate the side of the box drain, then lay the clean concrete sand for those 4” including and envelope around the drain box. Then top the area that had the drain pipe with whatever you want, that is permeable, ie the gravel cleaned out. The sand will carry the water. This is all assuming the drain box goes somewhere with positive drainage.it wouldn’t hit to put sand below the box too, and poke holes in the bottom so there is no standing water.

The trick is allow the materials to do the work, not necessarily a drain pipe. Although u could get 3” perforated drain pipe too.

Pretty much. You want a 6"-8" excavation for a 4" sock pipe. Probably 1"-2" of small gravel underneath. Back-fill as best you can and throw the rest under the deck or the neighbors yard.

It's corrugated sock-pipe. The are holes in the pipe allows water to flow properly. The "sock" keeps the sediment out.

OP has no idea he's about to watch HOURS of drainage installation videos. Poor guy.

Anywhere water flows across the ground it’s going to pick up sediment along the way.

I kept having the same kind of problem in my old location. There was a lot of sand around I kept getting sand in all my drains. Anywhere I put corrigated or french drain, the bottom third of the pipe would fill up with sand and flow rates would just plummet. My situation was different though. I replaced most of my corrugated with straight clean PVC and give it enough drop the the sediment went with the water. Of course I was going to an NDS drywell so the angles will whatever I wanted them to be.

If you can figure out a way to stop the erosion, digging it out thoroughly , gravel, sock pipe, gravel would be great. In the same vein if you could get erosion under control dig it out gravel French drain gravel would be quite reasonable.

But if you can't get the sediment under control any type of underground conveyance is just going to eventually get plugged.

I would suspect the proper solution would be to regrade what's there with a retaining wall, but that's edging more out of DIY and into getting a proper professional to tell you what angles to actually use.

For a quicker cheaper fix, You might want to just construct something that's easier maintenance. Do a concrete gutter then you could just blow it out with a pressure washer.

But isn’t the sock around the pipe just something that has small enough spaces to let water through but not sediment? Won’t the sock clog up with sediment the way an air filter clogs with dust?

Socked pipe and gravel is better.

And EZ pipe doesn’t install itself. You still have to “Do it yourself.”

The 'All About French Drains' video specifically recommended in another comment is a good starting point. Hopefully some other commenters will watch it as well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bEVBOEIktr4

Oh, all my excavated soil goes into filling out my yard!

Haha!

eventually. you'll end up removing and redoing it eventually.

to prolong this, you can make a wrap to give more filter surface, and use a proper landscape fabric. a double punched non woven fabric is what you want. 4oz is a happy medium, less will allow more flow but isn't as heavy, 6/8, and higher oz will be less permeable and won't pass water as quickly.

to be fair, you don't use a French drain to take care of surface water. op should just run a trench that can be easily cleaned if maintenance is priority and ground water isn't a concern. can run a French drain underneath if needed.

in a French drain you ALWAYS want to use a fabric. even in heavy clay. again, many people are better served by proper slope and surface drains for the bulk of their water, which prolongs fabric health.

I can tell you right now that is there for a reason.

My buddies basement had some massive water leak issues and he could either install weeping tiles which he didn't have the money for, redo the window wells (didn't have the money for but he did manually next year and I helped) or create a rock channel drain to divert any rsiny water from the house to the street. The rocks are there to slow the seepage into the soil and allow the water to flow.

I would think twice about removing that channel or at least ask the last homeowner why they did that

If at all possible, I would recommend disconnecting your downspout from this and running it to somewhere far enough from your house that it doesn’t cause you problems.

This could be to ground, or to a soak-away, but ideally somewhere at least several meters from your house and where the natural grading conveys storm flows away, and not toward your house.

I never recommend roof leaders connected directly to a drain (and this drain seems terrible in its own right). This is because sediments and organics and roofing materials among other stuff inevitably end up going down the spout and prematurely clogging the drain.

If you have to have this downspout connect to a drain, I would recommend that you have an intermediate catch basin before flows go into a drain or further underground conveyance. This way with annual maintenance you can clean out all the crap before it gets out of reach.

The clean out suggestion I saw from another is not a bad idea, but may just push the problem further down the line (unless close enough to that grated basin I see in one of the pictures that it can push all the crap there).

As for the existing drain area itself. If the general area around there has flooding issues, I would recommend a perforated PVC pipe (holes pointing down), graded towards that grate at 2%, encapsulated in clear drain rock and wrapped all around with non woven geotextile.

If the only reason the area has water issues is because of the roof leader, then I would just run a non perforated run of PVC pipe to the grated area (but again, only if you can’t discharge it to ground somewhere better as mentioned above).

You could dig a "dry well" at the low spot as a simple fix- it would require digging a large hole, lining it with water pregnant fabric, and filling with river rock. This will eliminate pooling as it gives water time to permeate into the soil. I did this and it completely stopped my pooling. The size of your hole should be enough to collect any excess water for reference mine was about 10 wheelchair full. As for your trench, others have good suggestions

Suggest you also ask in civil engineering subreddits. Some drainage experts might have some good solutions

What exactly are you trying to fix?

When you put the sock pipe in, I would try to round the corner at more of a curve and not the 45 degree angle. The water will want to go straight at the bottom and you want it flowing around the curve. I think that spot will be where you have issues no matter what you do so that might be where you take the rock off the top each year and hose it out there. If you find not an issue, wont need to keep doing it.