How To Install A Drainage Pipe In Your Backyard (Video)

Do you have a wet or soggy backyard? I use to have a very wet backyard and I recently installed a drainage pipe to take away the water from the downspot and excessive rain water on our lawn. Since I live in the Pacific North West, we can get a lot of rain in the winter, spring and the fall. This also leads to a lot of moss and extra work to get rid of it.

The drainage pipe I installed is also a french drain. I had a lot of fun installing it and I created a short video of my experience. After the video I’ve listed the steps I followed. These are in the video and a nice summary for easy reference.

Steps I followed to install the drainage pipe (that are in the video):

• Break up the concrete on the walkway
• Dig the trench
• Fill the trench with a few inches of small stones
• Remove the down spout connector
• Connect a 6 foot section of non-perforated Big-O tubing
• Wrap the perforated Big-O tubing in landscape fabric
• Connect the long section of perforated Big-O tubing and layed it in the trench
• Cover the trench with dirt
• Spread grass seed and water it

I finished this project in early fall and since then our backyard is no longer soggy and muddy. I also expect a lot less moss in the Spring.

Questions and Answers
Here is a few questions I’ve received on this project and you might find the answers useful.

1. Why do you use peforated pipe?
This allows the water to slowly draing into the ground as it runs down the pipe.

2. Why is the first section non-peforated pipe?
This is because I want to make sure that the water gets away from the foundations of the house before it starts draining back into the ground.

3. Why do you wrap the perforated pipe with landscape fabric?
This ensures that the water will drain through the pipe, but dirt will not plug up the holes.

4. What was the hardest part of this project?
Digging the trench was tough because our backyard has a lot of clay and rocks in it. Another reason why our drainage is so poor.

If you have more questions or comments on this project please post a comment below.