The French Drain and Outdoor Sump Pump System Built to Never Freeze

Added: 2026-05-23

[00:00:00]When you don't have standing water anymore, you're going to have a healthier lawn.

[00:00:12]This came out really nice. This was 350 ft of French drain. It was a really big system.

[00:00:19]We work in Michigan, here in the north where your discharge lines can freeze up. When given the option, always run it above ground. When you try to run it underground, you could end up with it freezing.

[00:00:30]And then when you have a thaw, it'll be froze up underground.

[00:00:34]So, we were able to run this discharge line about 75 ft down this fence.

[00:00:39]It came out really nice.

[00:00:42]We now have received 4 in of rain.

[00:00:53]You can see how the grass blades are laying down that the sump pump has been turning on through that 4 in of rain.

[00:01:03]We did this couple months ago. Got a full video on it.

[00:01:10]We have a sump pump right here.

[00:01:15]We're lifting the water up on the fence and we have a discharge line running all the way to the road.

[00:01:21]We didn't want it to freeze in the wintertime.

[00:01:24]It was too flat going out to the street and the water collects at the end of the street. It ponds really bad. So, I thought it'd be best just to put this up on the fence.

[00:01:38]It'll always be able to turn on during a thaw, even when that street is flooded where the water puddles really deep over there.

[00:01:45]All right, there we go.

[00:01:48]There we go.

[00:01:57]All right, so the French drain works 24/7.

[00:02:07]So, we had 4 in of rain total here and the yard is drying out. The French drain is pulling all the water from the subsurface.

[00:02:24]You can see why I didn't take the discharge to the curb.

[00:02:28]This is going to freeze in the winter.

[00:02:30]It's not going to be a safe environment for when people park and get out of their car just walking.

[00:02:38]This will always end up holding water.

[00:02:40]If your discharge is low and the discharge end freezes, I've had it happen. I speak from experience when I tell you guys what to do.

[00:02:49]Here in the north, you've got to really be vigilant.

[00:02:52]The guys did such a nice job on this.

[00:02:55]So, we did 350 ft of French drain.

[00:02:59]We do have some downspouts tied into this, too. I've been driving around checking out our systems. It's been raining and I finally got a break.

[00:03:09]I would have rather seen this one in a pouring rain, too, like some of the others, but it did just quit raining, so look how beautiful this yard looks. When you don't have standing water anymore, you're going to have a healthier lawn.

[00:03:24]And you can see this is where the French drain is.

[00:03:32]This was the first house that we put the new 3x4 tops. Look at that. That's beautiful. Those are actually our first shots. They're called first shots when you test the tool.

[00:03:44]It didn't have grain yet, so they're a little bit shiny.

[00:03:47]The tool's now been grained.

[00:03:49]We wanted to make sure it was a perfect fit, everything was good. So, we're grabbing up these big 3x4 downspouts. So, we got a solid pipe. We got catch basins. We got a French drain running down the side of this house.

[00:04:05]Grass looks pretty good. We got an inline sediment trap on every single one of these downspouts.

[00:04:13]This is the only area that had a little bit of trouble as far as grass growing on top of the French drain. This was a big intersection right here. There was a lot of stone.

[00:04:25]We were rained off this really big 350-ft French drain job along with a few downspouts that all went to an outdoor sump pump.

[00:04:36]We put in our full frame screaming demon with 4 ft of extra chamber.

[00:04:42]This is a really fun job. This is a really cool install.

[00:04:46]If you're a young contractor or DIYer and you need to do outdoor sump pump systems for drainage, this is the video for you. We're going to show every connection.

[00:05:08]This homeowner had so much water in this yard.

[00:05:18]There was so much water around this playset.

[00:05:28]Remember, we we built up a bunch of dirt right here.

[00:05:33]We're slightly bermed because there's a lot of water coming off the railroad tracks right here on the side of the home.

[00:05:42]Kyle right now is throwing grass seed and then we'll throw some straw over that grass seed and it'll just take off.

[00:05:49]So, we're doing a a sun and shade mix that we use. It's got bluegrass in it.

[00:05:58]It's got rye in it, so we got some grass that'll pop right away.

[00:06:07]There was a lot of water coming through off the railroad tracks.

[00:06:11]That grass seed turned out really nice.

[00:06:14]That was grass seed we put down with straw.

[00:06:25]All right, so I'm glad that I caught that thing when it was running for you.

[00:06:30]You can see how how dry the yard is.

[00:06:33]Water's just running down the street.

[00:06:36]Street's now just starting to dry out.

[00:06:38]Like I said, the rain just quit right before I got here.

[00:06:43]But I wanted to get you guys some footage.

[00:06:46]That's after 4 in of rain, 350 ft of French drain.

[00:07:21]All right, so the French drain works 24/7.

[00:07:31]So, we had 4 in of rain total here and the yard is drying out. The French drain is pulling all the water from the subsurface.

[00:07:56]Another reason why we did not want to use a half horse pump was the water would have came out so violent over here. So, we used a 1/3 horse. That's all we needed. We weren't lifting the water that high.

[00:10:56]>> You can see we have a lot of slope, a lot of pitch. We're not asking a lot from this 1/3 horsepower pump.

[00:11:05]If you enjoyed this video, give us a thumbs up. It supports the channel. Do you have any questions regarding this installation? Leave them in the comment section. I'm your host Robert Sherwood and until the next video.