Sanity check... is this correct? French Drain "Reinstall"
Hello! So, about a month ago, during particularly heavy storms, the french drain alongside the front of my house completely washed out, and water pooled in "pockets" that formed, and eventually, overtopped the Sill, pouring into my basement in a torrent. The later photos in the album show this event.
I hired some folks to repair it, and I'm confused because either I don't understand what a french drain should be, or it wasn't done correctly. First of all, best I can tell, there is no pipe under the rocks. The new rocks are atop new landscaping fabric, and the trench was dug lower. What is stopping the rocks from just washing out again? I thought all french drains had a pipe in them, is this inaccurate?
Secondly, it's still up against the house, not perfectly sloped, and not angled away. My ASSUMPTION was that the earth under the deck would be graded to slope away from the house, forming a sort of "V", with the drain set at the base of the V. Isn't water still running alongside the foundation here?
I wanted to ask here because, while I am very knowledgeable in SOME areas, I'm completely ignorant in this one, and before I go and question the work done by this company, I wanted to find out if I'm just completely wrong and this is fine actually. They also installed more rocks, above a pipe leading to a box with a grate up at the top alongside the "side" of the house, which should mean less water goes under the deck in the first place. It's entirely possible that this was done right, but it doesn't match my expectation / assumption so I was surprised. At the end of the day, all I really care about is that water stops entering the house! Thank you!