Leaking basement--Educate me on this French Drain

Hey all,

I live in an older house (1942) in Earthquake country (SF Bay) that sits on a slight incline. When it rains a lot, as it does here in the winter, my cracked old foundation leaks in several areas. The worst area seems to be coming from the corner of the house with the highest elevation. No surprise, but what's odd is that already has a French drain.

I'm wondering, is this French drain working properly? Do I just need to put some Quickcrete or something on the foundation there? There are many cracks throughout, again this being an old house near a fault line.

Does this French drain just suck? Any thoughts on how to rectify the situation?

To help illustrate, here are some pictures.

I dug up the gravel around where the leak in the foundation seems to be coming from. The pipe doesn't appear to be perforated, and is covered with some sort of lining material. Is this normal? I thought the pipes were typically perforated to absorb the water.

Here is where the drain seems to end. Is the water supposed to come out here? Seems strange that it would need to rise that high.

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Where it travels alongside the house. The first pic is from up at the top there.

Evidence of the leaking in the basement that I suspect is coming from that upper most corner of the house.

C'mon, there's got to be some contractors, builders, or just DYI home people on here!

The theory behind a French drain is that it fills from the bottom. 

Generally, you dig a ditch, put some gravel in the bottom, put a filter of sorts in. Think mesh fabric, I forget the actual name (silt screen?), then a skim of gravel, the pipe, which has holes on the bottom, gravel to cover, then dirt up to grade. Maybe plastic  sheet on the very bottom. 

I suspect your old drain is clogged. Does water run out the outlet when it rains? This is all in my future. Hope my rudimentary explanation helps. (I am not a contractor).

Now that I think of it, when I did one of these, I stretched a "sock" over the perforated (plastic) pipe, surrounded by gravel, then covered with dirt. Good luck.

First pic shows a lot of dirt on top of the drain. The filter media/sock/landscapers fabric can all clog over time. First thing I'd try is running a snake or camera through the open end. It's entirely possible the drain is backing water up instead of flowing properly

Yup... much dirt will give you headaches.  I would dig it up, hose off the sock, and put new gravel (or sift your old gravel) to put below and on top.

The pipe itself is actually unnecessary if you could keep the dirt out of the gravel... but that is exactly why you need the pipe, because dirt does get in.

 Short of digging out all the dirt around your foundation and covering the while outside with a water coating membrane what you have there is doing nothing to keep the water from getting into your basement. What is need if you can't do that is to cut a channel in the cement around the whole basement parameter. Do a drain like what you have outside around the parameter. Then it needs to be directed into a sump and piped out of the basement. After it's out of the basement the pipe needs to continue out to the edge of the property or into the drainage ditch or city culvert. 

Best bet is to stop it from getting into the basement in the first place. With the crack in the picture that is not going to be easy or cheap. 

Another possibility if there is a crawl space, which it looks like there is in the picture, You could dig a sump basin in up there and direct the water into it and then pump it outside.

In the picture with the drain it looks like the foundation ends right there and doesn't land on a footing? Is that how it is? Need more pictures to make a good plan of attack. If the water is coming in under the foundation on the upper side where there is a crawl space it may be possible to direct the water to go where you want it to. 

Being the build date is in the 40's and it is comparable to Seattle in build quality as my grandparents house was build around the same time. They had a half basement with a crawl space that basically had a stream running in the dirt in the winter. Put a sump basin in and channeled the water into it then pumped it out the far end of the house at the lowest point. Took about half a day to install and pipe basin. The other half to run a dedicated outlet for the pump. Worked like a charm.

The drain is clogged with dirt, which slows down the water flow.  My drains, done recently, have drilled pvc pipe with holes facing up under the stones in the areas to drain.  The runoff side has the holes facing down, to help lose some of the runoff.  The end of the pipe has a grille, where most of the water exits.  The yard where drainage is needed has a rock filled trough where grass is slowly growing over it.  I was told in no uncertain terms not to cover the rock with dirt as it would slow/stop the drainage.

So time to start digging out the trench and getting the dirt out.

Filter fabric is supposed to enclose the gravel and the perforated pipe, not just the pipe itself.  In effect, the entire gravel field should work as a drain for the surrounding soil, with the pipe just there to channel that water away quickly.  In your photos, the gravel field is packed with dirt and is effectively doing nothing.

In reply to brad131a4 :

I'm not sure if there is a footing, I'll dig deeper and find out. 

I've thought about doing a sump, but thought I'd try fixing the French drain first since it's clearly not working correctly. With all the cracks, it's probably not going to do much though, as you suspected. Thank you!

In reply to Curtis :

Thanks, that's what I'll try!

In reply to porschenut :

I don't see any holes in the PVC pipe, maybe I should drill some on top?

Edit: I found them, they're on the underside of the pipe. I guess that works, I would have thought the top, but I guess it soaks up from underneath.