French Drain Installation in Wildomar

French Drain Installation questions from Wildomar customers

Where does a French drain outlet on a Wildomar street that has no curb or gutter?

Often not to a curb. The City's Local Hazard Mitigation Plan states that Wildomar has over 53 miles of dirt roads, and that rain and erosion leave many of them impassable each winter. On those frontages there is no gutter to daylight into and no inlet to reach, so the outlet has to be found on the parcel itself or in a graded roadside flow path rather than assumed at the property line.

Does Wildomar's stormwater code allow footing-drain water into the storm drain system?

Wildomar's stormwater chapter does not publish a list of exempt household discharges. Municipal Code 13.12.070 states that it is a violation to establish, use, maintain or continue illicit connections to the storm drain system, and that all nonstormwater discharges are considered illicit unless authorized by a municipal NPDES permit issued to the City. Wildomar is a co-permittee under the San Diego Regional Board's MS4 order, not the Santa Ana Board's.

My Wildomar lot is on septic — how close can a French drain be to the system?

Riverside County's Local Agency Management Program sets minimum horizontal separations of 15 feet from a drainage course for septic tanks, leach lines, leach beds and seepage pits. Wildomar's own sewage discharge chapter adds that a dispersal system needs at least five feet of continuous soil below its bottom and eight feet of soil down to fractured or weathered bedrock, which a trench cutting through the same profile can compromise.

Do I need a permit to trench from my yard out to the street in Wildomar?

Municipal Code 12.08.020 states that no person shall make any excavation or backfill in, or construct, install or maintain any improvement, structure or encroachment in, on, over or under, any City street or the right-of-way without first obtaining a permit from the Transportation Director. Wildomar's improvement standards separately require an encroachment permit for work in Riverside County Flood Control and Water Conservation District right-of-way.

What should I have ready before asking about a French drain in Wildomar?

Whether the street in front of the lot has a curb or is a dirt road, where the water collects and how long it stays, whether the lot is on septic, and where any fence lines sit. Each one changes the outlet. Photos taken during or just after a rain help. The Wildomar guide on this site explains how the two watersheds, the dirt roads and the City's permit rule for work in a street right of way shape the choice.

How well does Wildomar soil absorb water?

In the one place it was tested in detail, slowly. A geotechnical report for a site at Baxter Road and Central Avenue found Pauba Formation at the surface down to about 51 and a half feet and measured infiltration of 0.12 and 0.46 inch per hour. That is one site and not the next lot, but it is a reason to think of a Wildomar French drain as a pipe to an outlet rather than a way of putting the water into the ground.