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?

"Snuffy "Hub Cap" McKinney" wrote in message ...
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?

I thought about getting one of those narrow tillers, pulling off the blades and replacing them with 12-inch saw blades about 4-inches apart. Then I could cut the sides of the trench and then go back and shovel out the dirt.

On Fri, 20 Nov 2015 03:11:40 -0600, Snuffy "Hub Cap" McKinney
wrote:

"Snuffy "Hub Cap" McKinney" wrote
in message ...
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?

I thought about getting one of those narrow tillers, pulling off the
blades and replacing them with 12-inch saw blades about 4-inches apart.
Then I could cut the sides of the trench and then go back and shovel out
the dirt.

Would your local rental place have a walk behind trencher? Home
Depot?
Lowes? The few walk behinds I've seen dig only a couple feet deep, at
most.


--
Using Opera's mail client: http://www.opera.com/mail/

On Fri, 20 Nov 2015 01:06:38 -0800
"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?


Mexicans! They dig good and cheap.

On 11/20/2015 07:20 AM, burfordTjustice wrote:
On Fri, 20 Nov 2015 01:06:38 -0800
"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?


Mexicans! They dig good and cheap.


Yah because white people are too ****ing fat and weak to actually dig a 5" deep trench.
Most white men can't even bend over and tie their shoes.

On Fri, 20 Nov 2015 07:57:30 -0500
SS Fraudmeister wrote:

On 11/20/2015 07:20 AM, burfordTjustice wrote:
On Fri, 20 Nov 2015 01:06:38 -0800
"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?


Mexicans! They dig good and cheap.


Yah because white people are too ****ing fat and weak to actually dig
a 5" deep trench. Most white men can't even bend over and tie their
shoes.

How would you know?

On Fri, 20 Nov 2015 01:06:38 -0800, "Snuffy \"Hub Cap\" McKinney"
wrote in


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?

A walk-behind trencher?
http://www.unitedrentals.com/en/cata...er-30-36-depth
--
Web based forums are like subscribing to 10 different newspapers
and having to visit 10 different news stands to pickup each one.
Email list-server groups and USENET are like having all of those
newspapers delivered to your door every morning.

On 11/20/2015 1:06 AM, 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?


Up here in the Great White North, us folks hire the local Mexicans for
that kinda work. We white folks don't particularly like workin' that
hard. But we ain't givin' them bean bellies no raises less we can have
anal sex with their bitches.

Per Snuffy "Hub Cap" McKinney:
Any suggestions what would work good on a small job like this?

Starting about 3" down from the surface, we have shale and clay, so this
may not apply to everybody....

After having a trench dug from the house to a garden shed about 100'
away - and having to clean up after the guy....

I would take pains to lay some sort of runner - maybe painter's poly
tarp - next to the length of the ditch-to-be and then make sure that the
dirt that comes out of the ditch goes on the runner.

That way, it would be much, much easier to fill the ditch back in
without leaving a mess.

--
Pete Cresswell

On 2015-11-20, SS Fraudmeister wrote:

On 11/20/2015 07:20 AM, burfordTjustice wrote:

Mexicans! They dig good and cheap.

Yah because white people are too ****ing fat and weak to actually dig a 5" deep trench.
Most white men can't even bend over and tie their shoes.

Hmmmm.... White man, here. My first job outta the service was digging
ditches. Forty-eight inches deep in bedrock. Did it my first whole
summer in the smelter hot Sacramento Valley. Sure, I was jes a kid,
but.....

Now, 45 yrs later, I'd hate to have to do it, again. I think I'd
actually pay fer Mexicans to do it, but since I have neither the money
nor do we have the Mexicans, here in the rural CO Rockies, I'd
probably hafta do it myself. Heck, we don't even have a Home Depot.

Anyway..... buy a good pointed shovel with generous foot rests and
buy the very best leather work gloves you can afford. Oh, you'll
still get blisters. You can take that to the bank. But, at least
you'll still be able to dig while the blisters become calluses.

nb

In "Snuffy \"Hub Cap\" McKinney" writes:

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?

Give a call to Strother Martin. I hear he's got
a fella in need of some right thinking...

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0061512/


--
__________________________________________________ ___
Knowledge may be power, but communications is the key

[to foil spammers, my address has been double rot-13 encoded]

On 2015-11-20, CRNG wrote:

A walk-behind trencher?

Sounds good, but....

Many yrs after working as a ditch digger, I also worked as a rental
tech. Serviced equipment we rented out. Our Ditch Witch was in
pieces and we were unable to get parts, so it was junk. Prolly not
many walk behind trenchers can do swimming pool plumbing, but sounds
like yer doing lawn sprinkler installs. No doubt that for a mere five
inches, you can rent a WB trencher. I'd look into it. Home Depot?

Now, where I live, they do not rent WB trenchers of any kind. This
due to the fact that, although I live at 8K ft elev, this entire
valley was once under water (apparently). That means you can dig down
2 inches and hit a granite river rock the size of a VW bug. You see a
lotta rock piles, here, and backhoes come in every size from a shovel
to huge tracked Caterpillar/Komatsu's. BTW, if you have bedrock at
less than five inches, you'll need a good pick.

nb

On Fri, 20 Nov 2015 01:06:38 -0800, "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?

What do you call "dirt" there? That is going to be the main issue. If
it is clay and gravel, you probably need a machine. Since it is next
to the house it is going to be back fill so I doubt it will be solid
rock. I would dig a litt;le and see how it goes, then decide whether
this is something you want to do.

I got 4 hours of a mini excavator with an operator for $300 on craigs
list a couple weeks ago to dig out a new septic field (about 10 yards
of dirt). That was his minimum charge. It did not take that long and
he also dug out a big tree for me.

Your job is nowhere near that big tho (maybe a yard or 2 of dirt)
unless you are going to try to get rid of the water you are collecting
with that "drain". Where will that pipe go? What will happen to the
water? I assume you want it to get away from the house.

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?

Go hire someone hanging out looking for work outside your local Home Depot or
whatever you have locally. There are always 10-30 guys at the HD here.

On 11/20/2015 2:11 AM, Snuffy "Hub Cap" McKinney wrote:
"Snuffy "Hub Cap" McKinney" wrote in
message ... 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.

I don't think 5 inches is going to be near deep enough. Also, unless your
grade already has an "appropriate" pitch (and in the direction you prefer!),
you'll need to go deeper at one end to keep the water flowing (presumably,
you want to do something with it at that far end!)

Also, make sure ALL the water will get *into* the drain; you may want to
make a wider excavation and/or some landscaping to direct "nearby" water
into your system.

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?

I laid 2,000 ft of irrigation line with just a "trencher" (and my back).
It's relatively easy to get down (just) 6 inches -- even in the clay they
call "soil", here! And, the trencher cuts a 4 or 5" wide swath with each
blow (make a second pass to clean up the trench and you'll have the width
you need, "clean"). Tough spots can benefit from the pick on the opposite
end...

In hindsight, I would have bought one of those narrow 4" wide shovels
to clean the dirt from the trench (instead of just dragging it out
with the trencher). They're also a lot easier on your back (long handle).

I thought about getting one of those narrow tillers, pulling off the blades
and replacing them with 12-inch saw blades about 4-inches apart. Then I
could cut the sides of the trench and then go back and shovel out the dirt.

Until you hit a stone...

On Fri, 20 Nov 2015 05:48:39 -0600, "Dean Hoffman"
wrote:

On Fri, 20 Nov 2015 03:11:40 -0600, Snuffy "Hub Cap" McKinney
wrote:

"Snuffy "Hub Cap" McKinney" wrote
in message ...
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?

I thought about getting one of those narrow tillers, pulling off the
blades and replacing them with 12-inch saw blades about 4-inches apart.
Then I could cut the sides of the trench and then go back and shovel out
the dirt.

Would your local rental place have a walk behind trencher? Home
Depot?
Lowes? The few walk behinds I've seen dig only a couple feet deep, at
most.

I'm in my mid 60s and I just dug about 100 feet of trench about 10
inches deep. I did it all with a shovel and hand spade. I just did a
little each day. I start with the shovel, and clean it out with the
small hand spade. One day I went about 25 ft. no blisters yet, and I
dont wear gloves.

5" is probably not enough for a 4" pipe. You'll barely cover it. I'd go
at least 8" deep.

On 11/20/2015 4:51 PM, wrote:
On Fri, 20 Nov 2015 05:48:39 -0600, "Dean Hoffman"
wrote:

On Fri, 20 Nov 2015 03:11:40 -0600, Snuffy "Hub Cap" McKinney
wrote:

"Snuffy "Hub Cap" McKinney" wrote
in message ...
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?

I thought about getting one of those narrow tillers, pulling off the
blades and replacing them with 12-inch saw blades about 4-inches apart.
Then I could cut the sides of the trench and then go back and shovel out
the dirt.

Would your local rental place have a walk behind trencher? Home
Depot?
Lowes? The few walk behinds I've seen dig only a couple feet deep, at
most.

I'm in my mid 60s and I just dug about 100 feet of trench about 10
inches deep. I did it all with a shovel and hand spade. I just did a
little each day. I start with the shovel, and clean it out with the
small hand spade. One day I went about 25 ft. no blisters yet, and I
dont wear gloves.

5" is probably not enough for a 4" pipe. You'll barely cover it. I'd go
at least 8" deep.


Depending on the OPs location, 5" may not be with code.

OP, check local codes before you begin.

On 11/20/2015 7:57 AM, SS Fraudmeister wrote:
On 11/20/2015 07:20 AM, burfordTjustice wrote:
On Fri, 20 Nov 2015 01:06:38 -0800
"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?


Mexicans! They dig good and cheap.


Yah because white people are too ****ing fat and weak to actually dig a
5" deep trench.
Most white men can't even bend over and tie their shoes.


Si Señor!

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.

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

On Fri, 20 Nov 2015 07:17:25 -0600, CRNG
wrote:

On Fri, 20 Nov 2015 01:06:38 -0800, "Snuffy \"Hub Cap\" McKinney"
wrote in


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?

A walk-behind trencher?
http://www.unitedrentals.com/en/cata...er-30-36-depth

It shows him in the middle of a field. Can one use such a thing
right next to the wall?

On Fri, 20 Nov 2015 09:38:39 -0500, "(PeteCresswell)"
wrote:

Per Snuffy "Hub Cap" McKinney:
Any suggestions what would work good on a small job like this?

Starting about 3" down from the surface, we have shale and clay, so this
may not apply to everybody....

After having a trench dug from the house to a garden shed about 100'
away - and having to clean up after the guy....

I would take pains to lay some sort of runner - maybe painter's poly
tarp - next to the length of the ditch-to-be and then make sure that the
dirt that comes out of the ditch goes on the runner.

That way, it would be much, much easier to fill the ditch back in
without leaving a mess.

Very good idea. I do that when I plant a tree, etc. but I still
might have forgotten here.

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?

On Friday, November 20, 2015 at 7:00:19 PM UTC-5, Micky wrote:
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?

I had waterproofing paint bubble from the water pressure on it. touched one bubble and it burst i got wet.

"Snuffy "Hub Cap" McKinney" wrote in message ...
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?

Thanks for the good ideas. To answer some of the comments....

This is a very small job. The water all drains away from the house already, then across the yard into a garden and then out to the street gutter. I would rather the water go straight to the street and not take garden soil with it.

There the house is raised foundation. No basement. The way the lot is graded, a drain 4-6 inched deep is below the foundation.

Soil is hard packed clay.

On Sat, 21 Nov 2015 15:03:35 -0800 (PST), bob haller
wrote:

On Friday, November 20, 2015 at 7:00:19 PM UTC-5, Micky wrote:
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?

I had waterproofing paint bubble from the water pressure on it. touched one bubble and it burst i got wet.

I bet a 6-year old would have really enjoyed that.

Maybe too much loose surface material when painted? But anyhow, I'm
a lazy guy, so after it dried i'd just clean it and repaint it.