Bainbridge Island French Drain & Yard Drainage

Drainage in Bainbridge Island

On Bainbridge Island's sloped lots the tool is a curtain drain across the slope above the house, intercepting perched water before it reaches the backfill. Placement follows the water across shared easements through second growth, and reading it on Kitsap Formation clay that swells and shrinks is the experience part.

We've seen a well pump that never rests on sloped waterfront lots at Port Blakely near Winslow and a wet crawlspace a hundred feet from the leak by Lynwood Center. Both times the line was mid-century galvanized on waterfront cabins, the ground was Kitsap Formation clay that swells and shrinks, and the fix was French drain installation done once.

Homes from mid-century cabins, 1970s acreage and 1990s-to-2010s custom homes near Winslow got corrugated pipe or clay tile laid in clay that sticks to the bucket without fabric. On custom-home acreage off Highway 305 those are silted, crushed or parted now. For French drain installation we finish and replace them on a true grade to a working outlet.

Most failed French drains we dig up in Bainbridge Island were built without fabric, in till on the island interior, with no real grade; they silted shut in a few years. Ours use washed rock, fabric wrapped over, and a trench bottom shot to grade on shared easements through second growth, which is why they still flow near Manzanita.

Why Bainbridge Island drains fail

Water on Bainbridge has nowhere to go in the clay, so French drains and curtain drains need gravity outlets, and footing drains on the bluff homes above Eagle Harbor, Rolling Bay and Port Blakely are often the difference between a dry crawlspace and a slope problem. We locate those leaks acoustically and with a correlator, walking the line from the meter or the well house to the house, and we mark the break within a couple of feet.

Near Winslow the sequence is downspouts, grading, footing drain, interceptor drain. Checking in that order keeps a homeowner on sloped waterfront lots at Port Blakely from excavating a foundation to solve a downspout. For French drain installation we lay out and trench before we dig Kitsap Formation clay that swells and shrinks.

How the work goes

When we arrive in Bainbridge Island we lay out and trench, we finish, and we read the water. With rigid PVC on long driveways in bluff soils above Eagle Harbor on 300- to 600-foot private drives, we plan for the slow version with perforated HDPE or PVC and are glad when it's the quick one.

Scope for French drain installation here is three things: ground (bluff soils above Eagle Harbor), lot (300- to 600-foot private drives), pipe (HDPE under paved parking pads). The gear is the same each trip, perforated HDPE or PVC included, and we say which of the three is driving the day before we start near Agate Pass.

Sloped waterfront lots at Port Blakely near Winslow, mid-century galvanized on waterfront cabins below, Kitsap Formation clay that swells and shrinks around it: that's the Bainbridge Island version of French drain installation, and a well pump that never rests is the usual first clue.

Around Bainbridge Island

From Lynwood Center to Eagle Harbor and out around Agate Pass and Port Blakely, French drain installation is regular Bainbridge Island work. Across the Agate Pass Bridge from the Kitsap side; we schedule 300- to 600-foot private drives so you aren't waiting a whole day.