If you live in East Ridge (that little suburb outside Chattanooga) you probably remember the August 2025 flooding. The kind of rain that doesn’t fall so much as it files a formal complaint against your foundation.

Our basement took the hint and started flooding like it had joined a water park.

After the flood cleanup and the dumpster situation, we realized we had two options:

Keep living like we own stock in Shop-Vacs
Find a real yard drainage solution so we could finally stop basement flooding

If you want the backstory, it’s all in my post: “The Door, the Dumpster, and My Domestic Dramedy.”

The Estimates Came In, and Scott Did What Scott Does

We got a few quotes for a professional French drain installation and Scott looked at those numbers like they personally insulted his entire ancestry. “I can do this myself for way cheaper.”

And here’s the thing: I knew I should have put my foot down. I even had a tiny internal voice saying, “Ma’am… do not let this man freestyle drainage.” But saving money was enticing and, annoyingly, Scott can pretty much do anything.

Finishing is where he struggles, but starting? Starting is his love language.

The Plan: A Giant U-Shaped French Drain Around the House

Scott explained the DIY French drain plan like this:

We needed a French drain on each side of the house and across the back, then connect everything. Picture a big U-shape around the house: trench, fabric, drainage pipe, and gravel.

The problem with a French drain in a big yard is that it involves: (1) A lot of digging; (2) A lot of depth; (3) One side that’s sloped; and (4) my personal favorite: “manual labor”.

So Scott decided the answer was a trencher rental for the weekend.

I did not know what a trencher was. I assumed it was a guy named Trent who shows up with a shovel and a bad attitude.

Turns out it’s basically a giant chainsaw you ride on.

Scott was in big machine heaven.

The Trencher Arrives and Scott Becomes a Different Person

Once Scott climbed onto that red beast, he started crossing the yard like a man with a mission and absolutely no fear of consequences. He was carving trenches with freshly cut earth behind him like he was leaving crop circles of poor decisions.

The back part of the yard was quick and easy. The same cannot be said for the strip on the left side of the house because that’s when Scott learned there was concrete about three feet down.

Yep. He broke the trencher. “No worries babe, I’ll fix it.” Of course he did. He is the fixer of all things. He got it back up and running.

Did he learn his lesson?

NO!!!!!

He hit more concrete and had to fix it again. At this point, I was watching like it was live theater: “Welcome to Opening Night of Unsupervised Decisions.”

The King of the Trenches Era

The right side of the house started out fine. Then I looked out the window and realized Scott was not trenching efficiently anymore. He was playing. He was crisscrossing the yard yelling something that sounded like he’d been crowned royalty on our street.

I’m not sure what he said exactly, but the energy was: “I AM THE KING OF THE TRENCHES.”

And then it happened. I heard the back door open and Scott walked inside with that tone. “Babe… guess what I did.”

That sentence should come with a warning label and a waiver.

“Babe… I got it stuck.”

I stared at him like he’d grown two heads.

“Got what stuck?”

“The trencher. It’s in the trench.”

Not near the trench. Not beside the trench. IN the trench.

The trencher runs on tracks and weighs several tons. It had sunk down like it was tucking itself in for a cozy little nap.

And then Scott said the most hopeful thing a man can say right before chaos: “I need your help to upright it.”

Sir. I am a working mom. I balance schedules and groceries and coparenting and the emotional needs of a 13-year-old who thinks deodorant is optional. I am not She-Woman.

But did I say no?

Of course not. I have the survival instincts of a raccoon who sees one french fry.

Operation: We Have No Physics Knowledge

We tried everything our non-existent engineering brains could invent:

Plywood under the track

Pry it up with boards

Push, rock, lift, panic, repeat

Mostly just standing there breathing heavy, pretending we had a plan

And yes, you’re probably thinking: “Use the Jeep. Tow it out.”

That would be smart.

Scott owns every tool known to man… except a tow chain. Because why would the king of the trenches own the one thing that could save him?

We were out there for hours with no success.

Then we did something that required humility.

We asked for help.

Neighbor Rescue Squad: The Tow Chain Miracle

Enter our neighbor to the right, a young couple who has helped us before. Good people. Kind people. The kind of people who don’t laugh at you immediately when you say, “My husband got a trencher stuck in a trench.”

Scott asked if he had a tow chain. He didn’t. But he came over anyway and tried to help rock it onto the plywood.

Still not happening.

Then our neighbor across the street shows up and says something like, “We saw you were having trouble.”

He had a tow chain. But his truck was too small. Right side neighbor says, “I’ve got a big truck.”

And suddenly, what felt like a disaster became a neighborhood collaboration.

The big truck got pulled around back. The tow chain got wrapped around the machine. We all piled in the back of the truck to hold it down while Scott got ready with the plywood.

It was like a well-oiled team:

The trencher lifted

The board slid under

Scott hopped on and drove it out like nothing had ever happened

We cheered. We laughed. We gave Scott grief, lovingly, like you do when a grown man almost becomes one with a trench.

And I stood there thinking: We really are blessed.

Because without those neighbors, we’d still be out there googling “how to unstick a trencher” while pretending we weren’t about to cry.

The Rock Mountain and the Reality Check

After the DIY French drain trenching was done, the supplies were ready to be used.

By supplies, I mean: Drainage pipe, Landscape Fabric, and about five tons of gravel dumped in my driveway like we were starting a quarry

We now had everything ready for a proper landscape drainage system… except for one last problem.

There was a 30-foot section we had to dig by hand because the slope would’ve sent the trencher tumbling, and after Scott’s “stuck in the trench” episode, I forbade him from attempting anything that could end with sirens. And that’s when Scott’s ADHD kicked in like it had been waiting backstage for its big solo.

The Month-Long U-Shaped Hole Season

Y’all. I had a massive U-shaped hole in my yard for over a month.

Scott would make progress in bursts: fabric, pipe, gravel. Then he’d drift toward another task like a butterfly with power tools. We knew it would take time. He’s one man. But winter was coming, and I did not want the ground freezing while my yard looked like a construction site hosted by raccoons.

So one Saturday, we tried to do it ourselves. All day. Yes, I helped. And at the end of the day, we realized something important:

We are too old for this.

How We Finished the French Drain Project

At that point, we called our close friends, the Crabtrees (they live about five minutes away), and while we were venting about our trench saga, they said, “Hey, our neighbor has a landscaping business. He can help.”

A crew showed up and finished what we couldn’t. IN TWO DAYS!!!!!!!!!

After four months of off-and-on chaos, the yard drainage solution was finally complete and our basement flooding prevention plan actually felt real.

So yes, technically Scott did a DIY French drain, and yes, we saved money compared to some of the quotes.

But more importantly, we learned:

DIY doesn’t mean “do it alone”

Starting is fun, finishing is holy

And sometimes the most faithful thing you can do is say, “We need help.”

God Provided Help and Humility

Here’s where the faith piece hit me. I’m the kind of person who wants to fix things quickly. Neatly. Preferably with a checklist and a clear finish line. But God keeps teaching me that sometimes the lesson isn’t “do it perfectly.” Sometimes the lesson is “receive help.”

This whole project started because of a flood we couldn’t control. And life is like that. It floods. It overwhelms. It forces you to face what you’ve been ignoring. And then God sends people.

Not always in dramatic ways. Sometimes it’s:

a neighbor with a tow chain,

a neighbor with a truck,

and a reminder that we were never meant to carry everything alone

It humbled us. It grounded us. It reminded me that community is one of God’s sweetest provisions.

Galatians 6:2 says, “Carry each other’s burdens…”
And that’s exactly what they did. They carried ours, right there in the yard.

The Domestic Dramedy Teaser

The drains are done, thanks to our neighbors and the landscaping crew we finally caved and hired.

But Scott still has to finish the landscaping project he started a year ago… where I currently have a mysterious patch of missing ground like our yard got a bad haircut.

That, my friends, is a story for another day.

DIY French Drain Chaos in East Ridge: Scott, a Trencher, and the Neighbors Who Saved Us