Linear French drains are a type of drainage system that drains along the entire length of the system as opposed to draining on one particular point of the system.
These linear French drains systems are similar to a channel system they are comprised of a u-shaped cross section with a grating at the top.
Linear French drains come in a variety of materials, such as stainless steel, polymer concrete, wet press concrete, and HDPE. They also come in a variety of sizes, starting from 50mm and going all the way up to 250 mm.
There designs are quite varied starting from a simple half-meter or more units for simple home driveways, to combined kerb-side draining units.
The two basic types of linear French drains units are the ones that have built in falls and the ones that maintain a regular depth that runs along the entire length of the drain.
The built in falls units are basically used for very huge projects such as draining of car parks airports etc. The regular depth units are usually used for shorter drain lengths, such as areas with natural slopes or fall.
Linear French drains requirements are determined using a standard equation based on the amount of rainfall and the size of the area that needs to be drained.
Also the flow capacity of the linear French drains systems has to be calculated according to the roughness of the material, the channel and the gradient in order to make the necessary allowances for these dimensions.
Because linear French drains are sectional a joint is placed between each adjacent unit, and some of them may even include some form of overlapping joint, in order to make sure that the lengths of each drain contains of a "male" and "female" end.
Linear French drains systems can be installed in a straight line very easily, but when it comes to installing those corners, curves, angles and junctions, you will have to purchase a standard 90 degree corner unit or a 90 degree T-junction depending on the type of installation job you are performing.
Although there is quite a variety of gratings for these linear drains systems there are two basic types slotted and mesh and they vary in sizes; they can be as wide as 20mm gaps or as small as 4.5mm gaps.
These gratings are held in place by a locking device which is basically used to prevent them from getting lost or stolen.
