J Bird's Landscaping and Excavating has been in business for many years, and they do a lot of excavation and French drains.
My backyard receives a massive amount of runoff from neighbors' yards, so last year I hired J Bird's to install hundreds of feet of large French drains. J Bird's employees spent 3.5 days to excavate my yard and to lay down landscape fabric, pipes, gravel, topsoil, grass seed, and hay. I did have to plant a lot of my own grass seed to get the grass to grow.
In the past several months, particularly in the winter and spring, I observed how the French drains absorbed and moved water in my yard. I think that the French drains have greatly reduced the large puddles of water in my backyard.
This year, however, I noticed that my front yard was not adequately absorbing the water that was exiting the French drain pipe, so I hired J Bird's again to install a dry well or gravel pit. J Bird's employees spent 3.5 hours building the dry well. So far, I have observed the effectiveness of the dry well for only about one month, but the dry well appears to absorb the water from the French drains.
In the Pittsburgh area, not many businesses install French drains and dry wells that are wide and deep, so if you need large French drains, then I highly recommend that you get an estimate from J Bird's. I spent tens of thousands of dollars on my French drains and dry well, but the prices were slightly lower than what an engineer would charge. read more