T-Brick Shed: Finishing the French Drain

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Finished up the installation of the french drain and went through two and a half cubic yards of gravel today. Getting kind of tired of gravel.
Here we are in the process of covering up the perforated tubing. As an aside, Google hasn't been very forthcoming in answering a burning question I have. The french drain is a flexible piece of fairly thin plastic hose. We cover it with gravel. Tamp it down. Cover it more gravel and tamp it down some more. Then we build a 20-30 ton wall system over it not to mention a roof. Why doesn't it collapse? Here's what I conjecture. First, the circular shape of the hose distributes the weight evenly. Second, the footing and wall system are much wider than the 4" hose. Thus, the weight is distributed to the area on either side of the hose.

Filled in the bottom of the trench with some large chunks of rock my parents had lying around. This served to save us buying even more gravel and to keep the hose in the center of the trench while I poured gravel over it. Also, I cut off one end of the perforated hose and zip tied landscape fabric over the nub. I toyed with creating a tee by cutting a hole into the section extending into the drainage trench but figured the hole would significantly hurt the structural integrity of the hose and cause a collapse. In retrospect I probably should have made the drainage trench wide enough to fit the two sections of hose.

The second load of gravel for the day
The hose is completely covered and the gravel has been tamped down into fairly level submission.

Adding a layer of landscape fabric to allow water passage but prevent sediment passage.


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