French Drain Pipe Orientation
Which way the perforations face in a French drain, and why holes-down lets the pipe take water in at the trench floor instead of waiting for it to rise.
Keep a French Drain Working for Decades by Wrapping the Stone, Not Just the Pipe
A sock around the perforated pipe alone isn't enough — if the fabric doesn't also wrap completely around the gravel bed, dirt migrates into the stone from outside over the years and eventually clogs the drain from the outside in. Wrap the fabric around the trench, stone, and pipe together as one unit.
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The Problem
A common shortcut on a French drain is wrapping just the perforated pipe in a fabric sock and laying it in a gravel-filled trench with no fabric around the stone itself. It drains fine on day one — the failure only shows up years later, once dirt has had time to migrate in from the surrounding soil and plug the voids between the stones. By then the pipe's sock is irrelevant; the stone bed itself is clogged.
The Technique
- Dig the trench and line it completely with landscape fabric before adding any stone — the fabric should be large enough to wrap up and over the top once everything's in.
- Lay the perforated pipe on the fabric-lined trench bottom.
- Fill around and over the pipe with drainage stone.
- Fold the fabric up and over the top of the stone, fully enclosing the stone and pipe together as one wrapped unit — not just wrapping the pipe on its own.
Wrapping the stone and pipe together means dirt from the surrounding soil can never migrate into the voids between the stones, so the drain stays open and clear indefinitely instead of slowly clogging from the outside in.
Pro tip: If you're getting quotes for a French drain, ask specifically how the contractor wraps it — a sock on the pipe alone, sitting in bare stone with no fabric around the trench, is the version that fails. The full wrap costs a little more fabric and takes a little longer; it's the difference between a drain that lasts a few years and one that lasts a lifetime.
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