A French drain or weeping tile (also blind drain, rubble drain, rock drain, drain tile, perimeter drain, land drain or French ditch) is a trench covered with gravel or rock or containing a perforated pipe that redirects surface and groundwater away from an area. A French drain can have perforated hollow pipes along the bottom (see images) to quickly vent water that seeps down through the upper gravel or rock. Pre-engineered French drain systems, such as EZflow/EZ-Drain from NDS, eliminate the need for gravel and rock and may decrease installation time.
French drains are primarily used to prevent ground and surface water from penetrating or damaging building foundations. Alternatively, French drains may be used to distribute water, such as a septic drain field at the outlet of a typical septic tank sewage treatment system. French drains are also used behind retaining walls to relieve ground water pressure.
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Famous quotes containing the words french and/or drain:
“Such is the nature and make-up of the French that they are only good at the start. Then they are worse than devils, but, given time, they’re less than women.”
—François Rabelais (1494–1553)
“Why is it so difficult to see the lesbian—even when she is there, quite plainly, in front of us? In part because she has been “ghosted”Mor made to seem invisible—by culture itself.... Once the lesbian has been defined as ghostly—the better to drain her of any sensual or moral authority—she can then be exorcised.”
—Terry Castle, U.S. lesbian author. The Apparitional Lesbian, ch. 1 (1993)