Do NOT wrap a French Drain Pipe With Drainage Fabric

Misleading title.

Let me correct the missleading title, " dont wrap JUST the drainage pipe, wrap EVERYTHING!!! " There much better 😊

Helpful video! I made my French drain like you described but water doesn't get into the drain pipe! Am I using the wrong kind of fabric? Is there a difference between fabrics that are for soil separation vs landscape fabric meant to keep weeds from growing through? Something is wrong, but I can't tell why water is just pooling on top of the French drain trench!

What fabric do you recommend?

so, the real key is to make sure you have fabric between the soil and the stone/rock. Having a wrapped pipe is not a problem, as long as you still have a permeable barrier between your soil and your rocks

I had mine done (80’) a year ago. They used pea gravel and no wrap at all. It didn’t even make it through winter. Now I’m forced to redo myself. SO, I’m binge watching all your videos. Thanks!

You brilliant bugger- done your way following the video- street cred for the smashed thumb

Missing a trick by not saying 'Bonjour' at the start! 😀

I am so confused…. I live in the south where we have heavy clay. I did the burrito and it drains slowly, but pools up on the surface. Literally just installed it and the clay just saturated and turns into a thick slop. The drain is only about 25’, but 7 minutes to soak up the puddle = flood in a major storm. May just remove the soil and go with river rocks…
The video says we are in the north and the soil is very different.

It's common sense that the fabric will plug with sediment much faster than stone would. The holes are much larger in stone and stone allows more of the smaller sediment to pass through and flow out of the drain instead of embedding itself if your fabric. Now don't get me wrong, I think your drains work initially, but I don't believe you on longevity. You should show some of your older installs during a rain storm. I'd love to see if they're still flowing years later. You say none have failed in 30 years, but I don't believe you. In fact there's a lot of videos showing your double punched fabric absorbing water too slowly. It depends on the local soils. Might work well in your area, but it doesn't work everywhere.

Can you tell me where to get this pipe and fabric you use

Best video from FDM!

How can water get through the gravel and out the drain pipe when the tiny pores of the fabric have been clogged? Won't this render your system non working?

If you use the corregated pipe, instead of the pvc, do you still have to create your own slope for a flat property?

Thanks for the helpful advice!

What kind of fabric is that sir ??

Thanks for your videos! We got talked into buying limestone crushed rock but now I’m worried it will clog the drain. We have the non-woven fabric but now I’m thinking we also need the sleeve around the pipe so it doesn’t clog with crushed rock sediment. What do you think? The limestone is also pretty dirty 😞 I’ve been trying to wash it all before using it in the trench.

Is lava rock a bad choice? I have a bunch of unnecessary lava rock, and if I could use it that’d be great.

Is this a metaphor for something?

Man... you're confusing at times.

What kind of stone do you put over the pipe and what kind of black fabric do you use?

I see the pre wrapped drain pipe in stores. Is there an application where you would use it ? Why is it pre wrapped when your philosophy here is different ? I'm a little confused as to this.

The title of the video is incorrect, even when based on the contents of the video. It is not a bad idea to wrap a drain pipe with drainage fabric. It is a bad idea to not wrap the whole trench with drainage fabric. It is a bad idea to ONLY wrap a drain pipe without wrapping the whole trench.

This is such a confusing video. By the end, I have no idea what I should or shouldn't do.

I had some holes in the yard filled and the guys filled over the gravel of my French drains. Is this going to be a problem?

What fabric do you use for soil separation?

A picture is worth a thousand words

Isn't there a good chance that the fabric wrapped around everything will eventually block up with soil and then water won't be able to migrate into the clean stone / pipe?

Thank you for the video.
In my case, the water is accumulating only in a small pool that formed at the top of the slope. Do you think it would be better to use not perforated pipes?

It does not work bud.

I bought drainage already wrapped in cloth. Can I use it wrapped, while also wrapping the trench in separate fabric?

MAKES PERFECT SENSE.

a simpler explanations is: You want as much surface area for your filter/fabric as possible, Therefor wrap around the gravel.

The explanation makes no sense at all (:39). Adding rock to the trench will not "plug" the soil (water will migrate around any rock). Nor will the soil "plug" up (if it doesn't already do this, ie., water drains through the soil naturally, that's how it enters the trench). If the soil did plug up, then you'd never get any water to enter the trench in the first place, and that clearly isn't happening. You put in the French drain because the soil DOES drain naturally. The soil either allows water to drain through the soil - or it doesn't (clay type soils). Adding rock changes nothing to this issue, if the soil already drains, it will keep draining around the rocks. This video explanation is simply wrong. Using the "soil separator" method (with "pipe wrap") does separate the rock from the soil - but that's ALL it does. It does not prevent the soil from "plugging up". It does help the drain pipe from receiving any soil and causing the PIPE to eventually plug up.

Why not do both?, soil separator AND a sleeve/sock with the #57. Eventually dirt/mud works it's way through that fabric.

What about for a interior basement French drain system?
How would you stone and wrap it?

This is about the 100th video I've watched about clay and fabric and I'm still confused. I'm thinking about just doing it with rock alone. A filter is a filter... wether it is a fabric filter or a rock filter, wether it is non-woven or not. If it's filtering the clay, where does that filtered clay go??? and they all eventually clog. Seems like a fabric filter would clog much faster than rock...  I'm leaning on using 6" smooth perforated PVC pipe with 90 degree sweep elbow clean outs on each end, (round grates on top) and just run a pressure washer drain snake attachment through it every couple of years. Surround the pipe with about 1" diameter rock. The smooth pipe bottom should help it clean easier?? Seems like the rock might tend to clog from the top anyway, and not the sides or bottom, due to gravity... I'd rather deal with that down the road than pulling the whole thing due to clogged fabric.

Wrap the pipe

Then wrap the pipe with stones

Love your videos short and right to the facts thanks

Would be nice to hear a rationale behind using fabric in stable dirt. Have seen it clogged with silt to the point of allowing no water penetration after a single season of rain. ...Perhaps collusion between engineers and manufacturers? It happens.

Thank you so much for your explanations. Saying things like "soil separator" is important! I appreciate your helping me to do it right the first time!

I’m going to do an interior drain around the perimeter of my crawl space and run it to my sump pit, should it be done any different than this? Everyone else always seems to push putting rock in the bottom of the trench!

i love you guys thanks so much chicago weather is pretty close i love the water has a place to go this system definitely moves water im on a slab and previous home owner buit a screen room it has a flipper style gutter that just hangs off and dumps water and with the snow melting and spring rain water goes under patio andunder slab into heat duct but i did what you recommended dug nice trench laid fabric and coverd with gravel NO MORE WATER COMING INTO HEATER DUCT.THE SOIL HAD SO MUCH WATER FROM WHAT I MENTIONED ABOVE THE SYSTEM YOU POSTED MOVES THE WATER THANK YOU GUYS SO MUCH!!!

To many holes in that pipe water is harder for it to get into the pipe than it is to come out of it. a good pipe has a 20 to 30deg cup on the bottom to carry water away not just a few feet to where can saturate dry soil, that's more of an equalizing pipe than a discharge pipe. It also has nice holes on the top for roots to enter and get a nice drink of water and once a plant or grass finds that nice hydroponic tube it will put all its root growth into it until it clogs up sorry man terrible pipe.

Your contradicting yourself

Doesn’t the soil separator get clogged with dirt?

Are you located in Edmonton Alberta?

Not in clay soil!

Is there a link to the type of fabric you use. All I have found is landscape fabric