The water comes back every storm. So does the guy who never finished.

Standing water and a wet basement are a grading and discharge problem before they are a French drain problem. We diagnose where the water actually goes, price the fix as one fixed number, and finish the scope we signed.

Clogged French Drain in Edwardsville, IL

Direct answer: A clogged French drain is worth clearing when the pipe is rigid and the stone around it is still open. It is not worth clearing when fine soil has already worked into the stone, because the trench itself is what has blocked, not the pipe. One test hole at the low end of the run tells you which situation you are in, and it costs an afternoon instead of a quote.

What actually clogs in a clogged French drain

Homeowners picture a pipe packed with mud. That happens, but it is the less common case. The usual failure is that fine silt and clay migrate into the washed stone surrounding the pipe until the stone stops conducting water. The drain is now a buried strip of dirt with a clean pipe running through it.

This is why the trade argues so publicly about filter fabric. One position is that stone and pipe together must be wrapped, because unwrapped stone is exactly what silts up. The opposing position is that fabric blinds over in silty soil and then nothing gets through at all, whereas open gravel around rigid pipe can be jetted out when it blocks. Both camps are describing the same enemy: soil migration.

The test that tells you if the clogged drain can be cleared

Find the lowest point of the run and dig down to the stone. If the stone is clean and rattles loose, and water is standing in the trench with nowhere to go, the blockage is downstream at the outlet and clearing it is cheap. If the stone comes up as a solid grey mass you can shape in your hand, the trench has blinded and jetting will not bring it back.

Check the pipe type while you are down there. Rigid perforated pipe can be jetted repeatedly. Corrugated pipe with a factory sock cannot really be cleaned once the sock silts up, and pre-socked sections dropped into a narrow trench with no filter cloth are a build installers routinely film as what not to do.

What the test hole tells you

What you find	What it means	Typical cost
Clean stone, standing water	Outlet is blocked or buried	$350 – $900
Clean stone, rigid pipe, slow flow	Pipe can be jetted	$600 – $1,800
Stone packed solid with silt	Trench has blinded — rebuild	$45 – $90 per foot
Socked corrugated pipe, no filter cloth	Rebuild; cleaning buys a season	$45 – $90 per foot

Costs are for the Edwardsville and Madison County area with open yard access.

When a French drain was never going to work

Some drains are not clogged at all. They were installed too shallow, pitched the wrong way, or run to a discharge point that is higher than the water they are meant to carry. A drain two inches under the sod is a decorative trench, and no cleaning schedule fixes geometry.

The other version is a drain solving a problem the property does not have. If water crosses the yard during heavy rain and leaves without pooling or reaching the house, that is a watershed doing its job, and trenching it costs real money to stop something that was never damaging anything.

Clogged French drain questions

How do I know if my French drain is clogged?

Water pooling above the trench line during rain, a discharge outlet that stays dry while the yard is wet, or a drain that used to work and no longer does are the three common signals. Confirm it with a test hole at the low end of the run rather than by camera alone, because the pipe often looks fine on camera while the stone around it has silted shut.

Can you jet or snake a clogged French drain?

Jetting works on rigid perforated pipe surrounded by open-graded stone, and it can be repeated over the life of the system. It does not work on corrugated pipe whose factory sock has silted up, and it does not help at all once fine soil has migrated into the stone, because at that point the trench rather than the pipe is what is blocked.

How long should a French drain last before it clogs?

A properly built drain — full-width trench, generous washed stone, rigid perforated pipe, and a discharge point that stays clear — should move water for decades with only outlet maintenance. Drains that fail in three to five years usually failed on trench width or stone volume, the two things a quote rarely states and a homeowner never sees once the trench is backfilled.

Should I use filter fabric to stop a French drain clogging?

Contractors genuinely disagree. Wrapping stone and pipe keeps soil out of the aggregate, which is the main failure mode. The counter-argument is that in fine silty soil the fabric itself blinds over and the system stops completely, while open gravel around rigid pipe stays serviceable because it can be jetted. What matters is that whoever quotes your job can explain which they are doing and why it suits your soil.

What we put in writing before anyone digs

Fixed-price written quote before we break ground. Trenching turns up surprises; the price does not move because of them unless you approve a change order in writing first.
Zero-obligation site visit. If the honest answer is that the water is doing what water should do and you do not need a drain, that is the answer you get, in writing, at no cost.
The diagnosis names where the water comes from before it names the product. Grading, downspout discharge, and the water table get checked first; a French drain is a conclusion, not an opening bid.
Full-width trench, wrapped stone, and rigid perforated pipe as standard. We do not install narrow single-pipe trenches or pre-socked corrugated sections, because those are the installs that fail in year three.
Itemized scope showing linear feet, trench depth, stone volume, and discharge point as separate lines. No lump-sum 'drainage work.'
A named discharge point on the plan, with the permit or easement dependency listed separately so you can see which clocks we do not control.
If the system does not move water after the first heavy rain, we come back and correct it at our cost, not yours.