Footing Drains for the Little Pre-fab Cabin

Footing Drains for the Little Pre-fab Cabin

Taylor showed up Friday and dropped off a load of gravel. He says it’s to put in the foundation drains.

Foundation drains or footing drains are put in just outside the foundation walls to drain water away so it won’t seep into the foundation.

Ours is made with a corrugated pipe or tube that has holes to let the water in wrapped in a fabric sock to keep it from clogging with dirt. Then it is covered by gravel and a layer of landscape fabric.

Drainage Tubing in Sock and Landscape Fabric

The next morning workers showed up with rolls of landscape fabric and these pipes.

Footer Drain Pipe

It looks like the tubes they ran underground for our gutters, but covered in a fabric sock.

Unwinding the drainage tubing

The workers wrestled the tube into the trench. They put it on top of the footers.

They covered the drain tube with gravel

They poured gravel on top of the drain pipe.

Gravel fills in the trench

They filled the whole trench with gravel.

Trench filled with gravel

The gravel went almost to the top of the trench, nearly up to what will be the height of the land when we are finished.

Rake gravel over footer drain pipe

Then they raked the gravel level.

Landscape fabric

They put the landscape fabric over the gravel.

Dirt holding down the landscape fabric over the gravel

They rolled out the landscape fabric and held it down with dirt.

Foundation drain

They came back and pulled the fabric out to cover the gravel.

Enough dirt to hold down the landscape fabric

They shoveled just enough dirt over the fabric to hold it down. They can’t cover it up until the inspector sees it.

Enough dirt to hold down the landscape fabric

The footer drain, before it is covered. Once it’s inspected, the landscape fabric keeps the dirt that is back filled from filling in between the gravel so any water will drain away from the foundation.

Raked the gravel smoother and covered with landscape fabric

Another view of the fabric over the gravel that is over the tube that is in the fabric sock.

Landscape fabric

We called for the foundation inspection and we passed.

The cabin is from Westwood Cabins. You can see more photos and floor plans at www.westwoodcabins.com and www.facebook.com/westwoodcabins.

The work is done by Fowler Excavating. Taylor Fowler has managed all of the subcontractors.


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