Unless you are a homeowner who has experienced flooding in a basement or crawl space, thunderstorms and heavy rain are beautiful events.

Basement water is usually the result of the wrong direction of surface water. Although many houses have rain gutters and downpipes, the resulting water flow usually flows to the house and foundation.

Those downpipes should be connected to another pipe; this one is buried underground, away from the house. This is a form of what we call French drainage pipes. It may be named after an early American farmer who popularized the concept of installing ditches and foundation pipes to drain farmland.

The simplest French drainage pipe is a perforated pipe laid on a stone bed. The stone creates a path for the water to enter the pipe, and then the water is directed to an acceptable end, perhaps a ditch on the side of the road.

The foundation of the house has long used this concept to direct groundwater to a collection basin in the basement, where the water is pumped away and away from the home. These drainage pipes are often called water-permeable bricks because their early structure was that clay bricks were roughly butted with each other and laid on the horizontal perimeter around the foundation to intercept groundwater and slowly redirect the groundwater to the sump.

French drains have recently been "rediscovered" as a means for homeowners on small plots to deal with stagnant water. Such subdivisions are usually built with surrounding depressions that direct surface water to an acceptable end point, which may be a ditch or a nearby stream.

However, the landlord’s landscaping and renovations over the decades have often rendered these depressions ineffective. As a result, many homeowners regularly set up ponds in their yards. One solution might be to create a depression in the yard to direct the water to the drain on the edge of the street. If this is not possible, another option may be a French drain.

This type of drain is designed to keep water below ground level, where it will slowly "seep" into the surrounding soil. It may consist of a series of shallow small diameter (6") pipes that extend horizontally or larger pipes that extend down vertically into the ground. In some cases, a single large diameter pipe is placed vertically and many small diameter pipes are far away from it— -It's a bit like a spider web configuration.

The central idea is to move the water away from the foundation of the house and under the lawn, so that the pond does not create breeding grounds for insects or kill grass.

The simplest system today will consist of a corrugated and perforated plastic tube with a filter cloth "sleeve". Ideally, the pipe is surrounded by stones, usually pea pebbles. This "stone bed" is then wrapped by another filter fabric.

The filter fabric is designed to ensure that over time, the very small particles in the soil we call "fine particles" do not enter the drain, where they may settle and eventually clog the system. These fines usually clog the homeowner's seepage tiles around the basement.

If a vertically buried large-diameter pipe is the core of such a system, it may have a removable cover or cover on top for regular inspection, and cleaning and pumping when needed.

Therefore, if you are a homeowner dealing with surface water problems, please know that there are solutions. Direct the water away from your home, and possibly use a French drain to keep the water away from sight and head.

For more home improvement suggestions, please listen to Inside Outdoor Guys on News/Talk 760, WJR every Saturday and Sunday from 10:00 am to 12 pm, or contact us at insideoutsideguys.com and ask your questions .