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.

French Drain Repair in Edwardsville, IL

Direct answer: Most French drain repair calls are one of three things: soil has migrated into the stone and blinded the trench, the discharge end is buried or crushed, or the drain was never wide enough to begin with. The first two are repairable in a day or two. The third is a rebuild, not a repair.

French drain repair usually starts at the stone, not the pipe

A French drain is a trench of washed stone with a perforated pipe in it. The pipe is the part everyone pictures, but the stone does the work — water travels through soil into stone long before it reaches a pipe. When fine soil migrates into that stone, the trench blinds over and the drain is finished, even though the pipe inside it is perfectly intact.

That is the failure mode drainage contractors keep pointing at publicly, and it is why a camera can come back clear on a drain that has not moved water in two years. The pipe is not the patient.

The three French drain repairs, and what each costs

A buried, crushed, or silted discharge is the cheapest and most common fix: the daylight end gets found, cleared, re-sleeved, and re-pitched. A partially blinded run can sometimes be jetted, which works when the pipe is rigid with open-graded stone around it, and does nothing when the trench is wrapped tight in fabric that has already blinded.

A drain built in a narrow single-pipe trench is where repair money is wasted. There is not enough stone volume to restore, so cleaning it buys a season. The honest quote there is a rebuild of that run, priced by the foot.

Typical repair scope and cost

Repair	Cost range	Timeline
Discharge outlet clear + re-pitch	$350 – $900	Half a day
Jet and flush an open-graded run	$600 – $1,800	1 day
Excavate and rebuild a failed run	$45 – $90 per linear foot	2 – 4 days
Add a run where one was undersized	$40 – $75 per linear foot	2 – 3 days

Edwardsville and Madison County, assuming open yard access. Finished basements, mature landscaping, and hand-digging around located utilities push the number up.

Telling a repair from a rebuild before you pay for either

Dig one test hole at the low end of the run. Clean stone with water standing in the trench points at the discharge, and that repair is small. Stone packed with silt in a trench barely wider than the pipe means a rebuild, and no amount of jetting changes it.

The filter fabric question is genuinely contested in the trade. One camp wraps stone and pipe together to keep soil out. The other argues fabric blinds over in silty soil, and that open gravel around rigid pipe is better because it can be jetted when it blocks. What matters for your quote is that the contractor can say which approach they use and why it suits your soil.

French drain repair questions we get asked

How much does French drain repair cost?

Clearing and re-pitching a buried discharge outlet typically runs $350 to $900. Jetting a run that still has open stone around the pipe runs $600 to $1,800. Excavating and rebuilding a failed run is priced by the foot, usually $45 to $90 per linear foot in this area, because it is new construction rather than a repair.

Can a clogged French drain be cleaned out instead of replaced?

Sometimes. Jetting works when the pipe is rigid and surrounded by open-graded stone that has not blinded over. It does not work once fine soil has migrated into the aggregate, or when the pipe is corrugated with a sock that has silted shut. Dig one test hole at the low end first, because the state of the stone decides the answer.

The pipe looks clear on camera but the yard is still wet. Why?

Because the pipe is rarely what fails. Water has to travel through soil into stone before it reaches the pipe at all, so when fine soil migrates into the stone the trench blinds over while the pipe stays open. A clear camera run on a drain that is not moving water usually points at the surrounding stone, the trench width, or the discharge end.

Is a failed French drain covered by a contractor warranty?

It depends what the warranty names. Many drainage warranties cover the pipe and workmanship but say nothing about trench width, stone volume, or the discharge point, which are the things that actually fail. Ask for the original scope sheet; if it does not state linear feet, depth, and stone volume, there is little to enforce.

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.