Every major storm my yard floods. Sometimes it gets pretty close to my back door. Ian is shaping up to be a very major storm. Thankfully this time I thought ahead and dug a very ugly trench. So far, knock on wood, it's working. But I figure since I already dug the trench I may as well put in a drainage pipe of sorts. All my limited drainage design experience is larger scale stuff. I don't want a 48" RCP in my yard. Have any of you installed a yard drain you're really happy with? What did you use?
Why not ask your neighbor to go in with you and put a nice wide Concrete drain between the two houses.
I use 4" perforated drain pipe covered with pea gravel and it works for me but our annual rain is less than 12". I like the concrete fix above.
I added 4" perf immediately all over right after moving in to rainy Oregon.
That's what I's thinking about. Lot's a work, but keeps it underground, maybe no skeeters?
I do a French Drain.
Ours is 160' long and is above our home in an arc shape with water exits on both ends.
We trenched a 12" wide by 36" deep trench.
Filled the first 3" with 1.5" crushed granite rock.
Then laid a perforated 4" ABS pipe on top of the rock —-
Pipe is covered with a fabric sock to help keep sand out —-
Then the trench is filled to surface level with more 1.5" crushed granite rock —-
The water flows into the drain —- disappears —- and is shunted out to either side of our property —- thus keeping our home and foundation as dry as possible underneath.
It also works great for the snow melt.
First year we were here in 2010 —- the under house and foundation were soaked mud. For the last 11 years —- dry as a bone.
There are lots of solutions —- the simplest ones usually work pretty well.
We have downhill sloping —- so the concrete may be your answer if you are relatively flat.
Best, Fred
French drain around our entire house too. 4" perforated pipe wrapped in landscape fabric and the trench backfilled with gravel. So far so good
Concrete swail will work too, just kind of ugly if it's in your yard
ya can always do this 8)
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Always remember that any type of drain system, whether sub-surface or above ground, has to have somewhere to empty or dissipate. Incorporating a swale on flat ground does nothing more than create standing water and a sub-surface drain without daylighting only cause wet ground.
My pet peave as a Homebuilder was always when people wanted their lot or property finish graded so flat that it was near impossible to get water to drain away from the house and off the lot. Luckily most housing developments around here are in areas where drainage can easily be accomplished by just raising the house up a couple of feet above the surrounding areas and grading accordingly.
In some regions you may need permits for such a project, may be worth checking into.
That storm is dumping a lot of water. Let us know if the drain worked. Dominick
Also, look into the overall topography of your area. Our small town is at 45' and is swampy flat ground. Like Tommy alluded to, the water has to GO somewhere. At some point in a bad situation, you flood because municipal drainage can only go to a certain depth before it's ineffective....because it has no place to go.
That's why it's a good idea to keep a yard of dirt handy, if you can, and keep throwing it around to create some runoff. Kids love dirt piles, too...or they used to. It's what put Tonka in business.
Thanks guys for the ideas. My back yard sits about 2' higher than the street but the previous owner did some funny stuff grading, deciding that the back yard should flow backward despite there being a house behind us, and that's just not how subdivisions are designed. Trust me i know. So he built the side yard about 3' above the road. Probably worked ok until the rear neighbor very reasonably blocked off the drainage below the fence.
So I used my green laser mounted on a 12" tall box, put a stake in just inside my property line with a mark 12" up, aimed the laser at that, and painted a line on my shovel 12" up.
I dug a very straight ditch on my side yard and definitely gave the water somewhere to go. Really it was just restoring the correct "A type lot" drainage design, sort of. Even though I stayed completely within my property with the digging I still spoke to the neighbor on that side before doing it. He loaned me his narrow shovel.
And the answer to the burning question, heck yes it worked. I never saw an inch of standing water on that side of the yard. And i went out in a quiet(er) moment of the storm and saw water flowing.
The other side of the yard has a similar situation, but it's not threatening my back door like this was so it wasnt priority. I'll end up doing the same there.
I think I'm gonna put in jacketed ADS pipe with a small grate top inlet near my back door, I'm gonna consider stronger pipe near there under my planned paver expansion, maybe do the one that comes pre-loaded with the stones, just in that section, but I may not do the stone bed under the perf pipe the 100' down to the road. I'm not super concerned with pulling in water from the side yard but the pipe is perforated and jacketed so it'll likely still be beneficial for that area. I'll do a bubbler cap or another small GTI by the road. Since the yard is much higher than the road it'll still flow. Something about a siphon effect or something.
Below is an after picture. I cant leave the de-ankler like that even if it does drain well.
If you are talking ads pipe in a roll, make sure there are no nearby trees. Roots will ruin it eventually. And if it ever gets plugged, don't call roto-rooter, they will slice it to ruin.
Another vote here for french drain. It's much better than a ditch running beside your house.
We put in a French drain 16 years ago and no more flooded back yard
We have the French drain on the up hill and weather side of the house. Basement is dry as a bone. Bill
French drain but use a perforated pipe with a sock on top and a good base of stone to drain into it and lead it away from the back to all the way to the storm sewer if code allows.
I neighbor ran PVC pipe to run it to the downward incline, so he did a catch basin at the east end of the property which was running into his basement, from that catch basin he used solid pvc pipe to run it 40 feet to the side of the incline and put a pop up spout.
I am in the process of removing my perforated sunk drain pipe and replacing it with solid drain pipe as when it rains a LOT, I get water come out of the lower end of the drain pipe and saturate the soil and cause some leaks into the garage.
My property is flat, old lake/marsh bottom. Fortunatly there is a 10' deep drainage ditch on the east side and the irrigation ditch (18"-24" deep) on the north and west side of our property that snow melt can flow into. The county cleaned the ditch on the other side of our road a few years ago due to flooding where the pavement ends. Snow melt created a 1 foot deep "lake" that froze making the road unsafe to drive on for a week.
I may be talking crazy here but is there any reason not to consider digging a hole, setting up some sort of screen to keep chunks out, and running a sump pump? I figure run a DC pump and a battery so even if we lose power it can still run. Then just run like a 2" pipe or something to the street.
Just musing here, I just sometimes wonder why the seemingly obvious solution isn't the common solution. In cases like that i assume I'm missing something.
If your new drainage project works, and you want to pump water out, why not pump into the new drainage? Pumping into the street might irk the neighbors...if you don't have storm sewer at the curb.
A guy down the street pumps his pool into the street every year when all he needs to do is open a sewer cleanout and put the hose in it. Water stands in the street for a week and the 80-90-year-old neighbors fuss and cuss about the mess.
Valid concern. But back to back lots in generally flat suburban areas (like most of Florida) generally drain to the street. In fact thats totally what mine was supposed to do, but the previous owner got creative so like many other things in this house I that I love, I've been fixing his mess.
My nearest drainage inlet is 3 houses downhill. Whether gravity or pumped I wouldn't pipe directly to the street rather I'd have a bubbler of sorts before the sidewalk so it's on my own property. Thus i can avoid dealing with any county RoW or HOA concerns. It would flow to the road, but again it's supposed to.
I appreciate everyone who has taken the time to comment.
Quote from: JasonGotaProblem on September 30, 2022, 02:08:22 PMI may be talking crazy here but is there any reason not to consider digging a hole, setting up some sort of screen to keep chunks out, and running a sump pump? I figure run a DC pump and a battery so even if we lose power it can still run. Then just run like a 2" pipe or something to the street.
Just musing here, I just sometimes wonder why the seemingly obvious solution isn't the common solution. In cases like that i assume I'm missing something.
It's done a lot around here, especially in the river bottom flat land areas. Just make sure city codes allow it and there is some sort of storm water drainage system for the water to disapte to.
Have they said how much rain your town got?
Quote from: Keta on September 30, 2022, 05:07:44 PMHave they said how much rain your town got?
Not yet. Interestingly it doesnt seem like it was a major rain event for my area. At least not like we expected. If I find out I'll let you know.
No matter how you do it the water is like Electricity in that it takes the path of least resistance . If you have a Giant Sponge it would go there but as a General Rule it nearly Always goes Down Hill.You can rent a small Bobcat with a bucket on it and change the grade on your yard fairly inexpensively A french drain can run into big money especially if you have underground pipes in the area you show between the houses like the Water Supply cutt off I see in your pic.There CAN BE all kinds of housing regulations and codes ,laws,permits HMO Specs and nosy neighbors .
Quote from: Wompus Cat on September 30, 2022, 06:51:23 PM....There CAN BE all kinds of housing regulations and codes ,laws,permits HMO Specs and nosy neighbors...
Fortunatly I live in a place where none of these ever happen.
I've never been a huge fan of French Drain Systems unless they daylight somewhere. Most people don't install them correctly. They should have an accurate and consistent 1/4" per foot slope. Most are installed haphazardly with the thought that as long as the general slope is down hill all is fine. There is a way, when they can't be daylighted, to run the tile to a huge leachfield but most properties aren't large enough to put in a leach field where it won't have an effect on footings, foundations, etc.
Quote from: Midway Tommy on September 30, 2022, 08:00:37 PMMost people don't install them correctly.
This is true. One consideration that's overlooked is how much water is expected to be moved. The same goes for gutter downspouts. Not many folks realize how much water, besides a bunch, is shed from 2k sq ft of roof. Many contractors don't explain this either....and many developers under-calculate this or don't at all, when putting in 200 homes 20' apart on 1/8 acre lots....on the sides of hills...with fantastic views....of other roofs.
$275 later, and my weekend is screwed.
Good luck, looks like a big job! :d
So to be more specific, I spent a long time talking to the drainage experts I work with who have experience with the local conditions of Pasco County, since they designed most of it. Good engineering is of course about doing the job right, without spending any more than is necessary to do it right.
I'm doing mostly solid pipe not perf, and no stone bedding. because quite frankly I'm trying to remove water from a few trouble areas during heavy storms, not trying to protect my foundation from soggy ground (sandy soil, deep water table, no basement). So I'm doing 3 grate top inlets in the trouble spots, and I'm also tying the one roof drain from my porch into it.
I will post pics when I finish.
I will say this, that $120 I spent to rent a ditch witch was the best $120 I've ever spent. Shovels suck.
I lived on the waterfront and Gulf Breeze Florida I did put in a French drain into a 55 gallon drum with 110 V 2 inch sump pump.
It was automatic. When you filled the pump the water back into the sound
Man I really did not realize how much work I signed up for. The weekend is over, and I am far from done.
So far I've dug about 130' of trench average 12" deep and 6" wide.
Using a laser level I've determined that the top of the run is ballpark 2.5' higher than the outfall. So I'm close to an average of 2% slope (which is the same as 0.25" per foot) though some areas are definitely a bit flatter than others, but to the best of my observation its continually downhill the whole way.
The nature of the ground level bubbler I'm using for the outfall means that the low end would always hold about 6" of water, so.i used jacketed perf pipe for the last 20' of the run. Some have said that you don't need any glue in the joints of HDPE drainage pipe, but I decided to use cheap caulk to hold them together. There's one section that goes between 2 trees, so I made sure that section is arrow straight so if the roots foul up the pipe I can come back and redo that section in PVC.
Pipe is in the ground, but only the 20' closest to the road (the low end) has been covered back and resodded.
Eagle eyed viewers may notice my enthusiastic helper in one of the pics.
Quote from: JasonGotaProblem on October 02, 2022, 04:28:06 AMI will say this, that $120 I spent to rent a ditch witch was the best $120 I've ever spent. Shovels suck.
Yeah, Jason —-
Some tools you just got to have, like the Ditch Witch.
There are others I feel that are sensible, get the job done quickly, and better.
For me, these would be airless paint sprayers, pressure washers, sand blasters, hydraulic wood splitters, and my all time favorite to eliminate work —- a gas-powered hole auger for fence posts and tree planting.
When we dug our French drain, we had a guy come in with a back-hoe attachment on his Case tracked Skid-Steer. We needed it 3' deep and a foot wide —- and even with the backhoe, he encountered roots 6" wide, and rocks like basketballs.
Another little tool that might seem foolish —- but has been great for me —- an 18V battery powered caulking gun. When you have a lot of bead to lay —- or even just one window —- this is a great time saver and does a fantastic job.
Best, Fred
Well I'm nearing completion other than re-sodding. I've got most the trench buried back but my body is not taking kindly to this. I had to just give up for the evening because my arm feels ready to fall off. Some kind of overuse/inflammation based thing going on.
Told my wife my left elbow is leading an armed revolt, but she didn't catch the pun.
I was ready to be done with house projects for a bit. But some tiles fell off my shower wall this morning and i discovered its just tile glued to (wet) drywall.
Quote from: JasonGotaProblem on October 04, 2022, 01:58:22 PMI was ready to be done with house projects for a bit. But some tiles fell off my shower wall this morning and i discovered its just tile glued to (wet) drywall.
Well if you thought your yard drainage ordeal was a PITA get ready for a bigger one. If tiles fell off you've got a mess behind it! WTTW, get the thought of any type of water resistant drywall, green, purple, gray, etc. out of your thought process. None of them will last. The only thing that will last is some sort of concrete board, Durarock, Hardy, etc.
I think this is good prep for cow tunas, which the upper body conditioning you have now, you should be able to land a 250lb tuna under 5 mins tops, :d
well done, those arms deserve a mention, nicely done!
Jason,project looks really good. Your movin along quite well.
I wish that i was able to respond to this early , but the power was out . You could have gotten away with 2 pipe and still used the pot wells with adapters .
I have 100 foot of super gutter and 100 foot of deco drain with a break point so i can drain on both side of the house . the one side runs a 2 inch pipe to the street ,it also picks up the over flow for the front pond and the waste / back flush for the pool . The other side runs to the front planting beds .
Why is the dry wall wet grout or leak ? If you have to rebuild Durarock, Hardy, is the only way to go.
I think its wet from cracks in grout plus decades of showers. It's an exterior wall, and I don't suspect a leak.
What few shower walls ive done have always been durock. I hear hardy is good for this too but no personal experience.
Im gonna caulk it back in place for now. I will most definitely be fixing it correctly in the next few weeks but no way in heck I'm jumping from trench to tile work. Heck no. I need a break. And a fishing trip.
Jason, you're in Florida, so the perfect solution to being overworked and to forget the lost tile in the shower is to go tile fishing. ::) Dominick
Man I finally finish my trench and get the bathroom put back together, and my garage door falls apart. What the heck man.
Quote from: JasonGotaProblem on October 12, 2022, 06:54:57 PMMan I finally finish my trench and get the bathroom put back together, and my garage door falls apart. What the heck man.
Isn't home ownership great?! We had a WH, DW & Refrig bite the dust, all within 30 days, at the same time those in charge are trying to dissipate and reduce the purchasing ability of our retirement funds. ::)
When i was plumbing houses in the early 80's tile glued to green board was the norm. Now we know its a bad thing
I realize I shouldn't complain. At least 2 people on here wish their garage problems were that small.
Yup.
Tell ya what though, first storm since Ian and even though all the inlets are closed off becaise I want to sod around them, the "bubbler" down by the street is popped up with water flowing from the roof drain. Gonna call it proof of concept
So I'm revisiting this. It's been 3 years. The drain works but it has to be unclogged from time to time. It just fills up with dirt. I blame the 4" pipe not being wide enough for large storm events, and the nature of the bubbler at the outfall meaning it doesn't flow at all unless it's a large event. In most cases it's just underground storage for about 10CF of water. So I put in another on the other side. I went with straight pipe instead of corrugated and it's all pitched downward. There's only about 10" of fall but it sure seems to work. I dug a shallow swale to the sidewalk which is about a foot lower than the outfall. It only takes about a gallon of water before I start seeing it flow out the bottom end. Trench is 80' total the top 50' is 4" pipe the lower 30' downstream of the last inlet is 6" pipe. Now I just gotta bury it back.
We've had some serious storms this weekend. I wish it was already installed. I rented a 24" trencher because it has a wider blade. Still not wide enough. But it was self powered and a lot of fun. Other than the sprinkler pipe I found the hard way. I thought it was about 3' away from where I found it.
I saw the old pics and just kind of shrugged when I saw the corrugated piping. I replaced a bunch as a landscape contractor. The heavy blue pipe is a bit of overkill, but you won't have problems there.
A neighbor came over with his excavator this morning and cut the soil about 6" deep and 2 feet wide. About 75 feet along the bottom of my middle slope. Every spring the hill leaks for a few weeks along there.
I just came in from cutting a swale the whole length to dump the surface water into the creek. Used a flat shovel, a pick and a 32" grading rake. Soaked my tee shirt even though it's only 68 degrees outside. Still getting the work done at almost 71 years old. (Two weeks or so).
Good work Jasonalmostouttaproblems.