On Fri, 20 Nov 2015 15:19:52 -0800 (PST), bob haller
wrote:

On Friday, November 20, 2015 at 4:06:49 AM UTC-5, Snuffy "Hub Cap" McKinney wrote:
I've got to put down about 50 feet of 4-inch french drain along the sides of the house. The plan is to dig down 5-inches, lay a perforated drain pipe, cover it with screen material and gravel.

Normally I would get out the old pick and shovel, but the wife is out of town right now. All the ditch diggers I see online are for heavy duty ditches. Any suggestions what would work good on a small job like this?

for a french drain that pipe would effectively do anything,

exterior frenchdrains MUST BE BELOW the leve of the footer.

That's what I thought. Mine, installed during construction, is below
the basement floor level. (Although now I can imagine some wierd
situation where it's not true. OP, who said this would work?)

doing such a shallow drain? when your done you will still have a wet basement, have a messed up yard , will have utterly wasted the work time and money spent on the project.

but feel free to prove me wrong after all its your back and wallet.

but i speak from experience

Years ago here I recommended UGL waterproof paint. A friend A who
has a friend B with a wet basement and I last year painted B's
basement, but the basement is crowded and there were things we could
not move or get behind. The paint worked great where it was applied,
but 20 feet down the wall, some water came in. Less or maybe even
much less than before, but in a different place.

Bearing all that in mind, I really recommend UGL latex waterproofing
paint, though I don't know its actual name. It comes in white but
can be tinted, iirc.

Also, isn't there supposed to be some way to grade the yard to make
the water run away from the wall? Pile 6" of dirt near the wall?