Driveway French Drain?

[sherab]

Howdy folks!
I just had my dozer guy to carve out my driveway and did a pretty sweet job. 20 feet wide and a ditch down the left side. It's a gradual slope going uphill about 400 feet.  No gravel yet.

Today we had pretty good rainfall all day and I went and checked on my driveway and the ditch was working as prescribed. I did have a few trickling streams carving out a path in the middle of my driveway. Is my solution french drains placed down the driveway?

By that I mean a channel cut straight across the driveway sloping gradually downward from right to left where it dumps into the ditch. I'd backfill over it with some gravel, I'm just not sure I have to use perforated pipe in this case or not.

Anyone have experience with doing this to a driveway?
JC

[glenn-k]

It would be kind of like water bars covered with gravel.  No reason it wouldnt work.  No need for the pipe in there - actually a good layer of crushed rock on a well graded driveway should take care of the problem -- probably not a need for the ditches in the drive if it is crowned properly.  The gravel will work into the top of the dirt layer preventing penetration of the water into most of the top layer -  if crowned (higher in the center) or sloped -- higher one side all draining to the lower side - besides going down hill.

In this case the whole driverway becomes an open topped French drain.

The key is not to let the water get up any velocity going down the driveway, so in an extra problem area that is where your water bars or ditches under the gravel to get the water off the road would come in.  Take care of the water at the higher end and you won't have a problem at the lower end.

[JRR]

Pipe across driveways can be very useful "years down the road".   There will later be a need to run something (telephone service, water pipe, lamp post power, etc) across and under that driveway.  A few instances of pre-installed pipe across may save you some later digging.  Of course, you must record on drawings where they are unless the ends are to be visible ... you will never remember exactly where they are otherwise ... and you will still have a digging job on your hands.

I agree with Glenn on using gravel to create pathways for draining away rainwater.  Landscape fabric layed on the ground before the gravel is placed would probably help keep the gravel free of soil.  And if the trench gravel is to be back-covered with earth, ... use a layer of fabric on top of the gravel.  Helps keep roots and earth from migrating down in the gravel.