On 5/19/2015 9:40 PM, Snuffy "Hub Cap" McKinney wrote:
wrote in message
... I am
installing a French drain between my driveway and house. The only
place to exit the French drain is on top of the driveway. However,
If the end of the drain exits the driveway, this severely limits
the depth of the French drain in order to ensure a slope toward the
end if that makes sense.

My question is, I have seen pop up drain emitters. They basically
look like a 4 inch 90 degree elbow with a top that pops up when
water pressure is exerted. Will a French drain product enough
pressure to force the water out of this type of emitter since water
will have to travel "up hill" albeit for just the length of the
elbow.

I appreciate any advice!

------

Can you get one and lay it out on top of the ground with a length
of pipe and test it? Gut SWAG feeling is that eventually the
elbow could fill up with sediment instead of flowing out
horizontally. Still might be worth a try if it's not hard to
remove the pop-up and clean it out once in awhile. Completely
guessing with all this.


Twenty years ago I installed French drains and set up the runs so they
ran down my front slope right where the end would peek out at ground
level. Then the city rebuilt the street and sewer, during which our
front yards were torn up, then regraded and resodded. My outlets ended
up 3-6 inches below the new grade.

I located the outlets, then ran a rototiller around them and dug out
wide, gently sloped basins in the lawn to once again enable drainage.
It was either that or dig up both runs and reinstall them. This was
less work.

So, if you don't mind some unevenness in your lawn, you could dig out
wide shallow-ish basins where your French drains will end. In normal
rains, the lawn will absorb the water before the basin overflows. In
heavy rains, the basin will overflow, so factor that when figuring how
deep to dig the basin, and grade it so that the overflow drains away
from the house. I saw photos of one guy's setup where he did this, but
he made the basins into ponds, for permanent water landscape features.