How to Install a RELN Driveway Storm Drain (Channel Drain or Grate Drain) on a Driveway

For years, my neighbor Tom has been plagued by surface water flowing down his asphalt driveway and flooding the foundation of his house. He did a bunch of research and decided on installing a RELN Storm Water Drain, or grate drain, or channel drain, to capture that surface water.

On a nice morning in October, I helped him cut the asphalt with a Dewalt Demo Saw (12" removed), remove the chunks, dig out the gravel beneath to our required depth. Then we put down an inch of sand to create a nice, flat base for the storm drain.

Then we compacted the sand, and installed 12 ft of storm drain with a cap on one end and filter on the outlet. The kept the top lip of the storm drain 1/8" beneath the top of the asphalt. We plumbed in 4" schedule 40 elbows to take the water down and out. Then we mixed up some concrete and placed it along each side of the drain. Halfway up, we used #4 rebar to strengthen the concrete. Then we used more concrete to bring it up to the level of the top of the drain. After the surface water bled off, we gave it a brush finish.

Enjoy the video!

[seabreezes]

It’s Monday night, I am supposed to be finding YT video about changing out a pool chlorinator as ours sprung a leak and we weren’t using it anyway so time for it to go away. Tell my dearest husband (don’t worry you don’t have to watch all of it) WOW WOW WOW, we watch it all as we have a flooding problem similar to this. Can’t thank you enough for posting this. We won’t be doing it ourselves (at 66 & 68) but you have made us so much smarter when we find a contractor to do the work! Thank you so much

[swervomatic]

Clean work. Well done. Your a good friend helping your buddy out like that

[marydsmyth]

Yes, turn off the music please. Great video. Very helpful. Thanks a bunch.

[jeffthewhiff]

A friend of mine just had this done to her driveway and you can tell by the video that you made sure that everything was done correctly and I like that you took pride in your work!

[davidfarr]

Thanks, Gentlemen, this is not my blueprint for my next job, awesome, very grateful!

[yiminghu]

Thanks for this great tutorial! Very informative for my own project as a beginner.

[buuluu]

job well done only thing is turn off music please!!

[remital]

Great job. Lots of thought went into making it a success.

[jonathanmuckell]

Thanks for posting. I received an estimate of $5K for this to be installed. Your video made this look a lot less intimidating to do it myself.

[BackyardGarage]

In the process of doing this now. Come to find out I need to widen my cement trench 8” to get concrete on both sides. I cut the channel as wide as my drain and now understand that it needs to be bigger. Was going to put quickcrete I there then just add water but not anymore. Thanks for the video

[Saki]

This looked easy and fun. I was thinking you were going to double up the drain with it being that wide of a trench.

[curtwarkentin]

Excellent job. It looks great... very professional. The kind of job I enjoy seeing and learning from.

[bethbessemer]

I have the same issue with my driveway~thank you for taking the mystery out of installing a channel drain David!

[josephstratti]

Read the content of water needed for each bag and use a measured bucket to add the water in one go.Easier to mix with all the water from the start.Tape where the concrete meets the bitumen for a nice line it will crack at the interface anyway so might as well make it sharp from the start.You did a well planed job and very professional result, thanks for your effort with the video.

[amylaurin]

Thanks for sharing this. The only thing I can think of to improve it would be a clean out at one end in case it gets plugged with debris.

[harvindercheema]

I'm doing something same but one side is paver bricks. Nice 👌 I learned some from you thanks

[Rbenterprises]

Great video (except the music.) Great attention to detail for DIY'rs! Thanks!

[gregw]

In the future, you might consider using solid sch40 PVC all the way to daylight. It'll flow a heck of a lot better. Once you have water in a pipe, you never want to put it in perforated, or you're just moving surface water to subsurface, and closer to the house, at that.

[thomasduin]

Most videos I have seen with this type of channel drain they advise against using corrugated pipe, most say to run solid pipe all the way to your daylight spot.

[randymack]

just learning, co-worker wants me to do something about water flowing toward garage, but it has eroded dirt from under cement ramp, rest of driveway is gravel, was thinking of a french drain, but like the looks of this better, but its a 2 car garage, so approx. 24' across. ill do some discussing with her