Footing Drains

[peterjcb]

I have been noticing that the soil in the crawlspace under my house seems to be damp. After investigating things under there on Sunday I found two problems:
1. The condesate pump on my A/C /heating unit located in the crawlspace, is NOT working. :(
I took it out and tested it and it doesn't pump. Apparently it has not been pumping the water out of my crawlspace.
2. After deciding to eliminate the condesate pump and drain the water directly through the foundation to the outside I discovered that my IDIOT BUILDER screwed up my footing drains. The footing drain outlet pipe is not only graded UPWARDS but it's not actually conntected to my footing drains. He simply laid an open end pipe in the ground next to the footing drains and covered it with dirt. After I dug the outlet pipe out, I found that it's filled with dirt.
I'm getting a gut with a trencher to dig out a trench so I can get the proper drainage pitch away from my house. I think that the footing drains around the house are probably OK but it's everything else that he messed up.
What is the proper way to set footing outlet pipe? I think that I need to get a T-connection to connect the outlet pipe to the footing drains. Should I also use a perforated outlet pipe leading away from the footing drains or just use a solid pipe. Also how much gravel? Should I top the gravel off with any covering like some asphalt shingles to keep the dirt from getting in there before backfilling the trench? Any other suggestions are appreciated.
Thanks,
Peter

[maarass]

Hi, I'm not a pro, but many have replied to my posts, so maybe I can return the favor. We just recently install footing drains. We used woven landscaping fabric to cover our gravel. It's real tough ang won't rip. I wouldn't used shingles as they wont let the water pass through to the drain. We wraped the exterior and connected both side with a tee. We mde sure grade was sloping down at that point. Non-perfed pipe the rest of the way out from the house. We set our pipe at the bottom of the footers and coved to the top of footers. You may want to go higher though. We didn't because all our footings are sitting on 10" of more gravel. If end of drain is exposed put on some wire mesh to keep out the critters. I hope this helps some.