French Drains

A French drain is a trench filled with gravel and a perforated pipe that collects water moving through the soil and channels it to a lower point away from your home. Installed around a foundation, it's one of the most effective and affordable ways to prevent water from reaching your basement or crawl space in the first place.

When You Need One

Flooding and foundation moisture problems are often the result of sloped ground directing water toward your home rather than away from it. If your property sits downhill from a neighbor's lot, heavy rain can send groundwater rushing onto your property. When the soil can't absorb it fast enough — which is common with the Triangle's clay-heavy soil — that water pools against foundation walls and eventually finds its way into a crawl space or basement. A properly installed French drain catches that water at the source and carries it to a safe discharge point before it becomes a problem indoors.

French Drain Services

• Yard drains — an economical way to prevent moisture problems before they start, catching surface water in low-lying areas of your yard
• Drain extensions — keep water from pooling against foundation walls and entering the crawl space by extending drainage further from the home
• Crawl space drains — installed alongside a sump pump to ensure water inside the crawl space is directed to a catch basin and pumped out

French drains are frequently paired with a sump pump so that any water the drain collects has somewhere to go — the drain does the collecting, the pump does the removing. Together they form a system that keeps water moving away from your home instead of accumulating around it.