Fix this mudhole behind my garage.

[Jawn]

I went to the basement / garage this morning to find puddles covering much of it. It seems my drainage issues have bitten me in the **** because of an overnight gully-washer.

Part of it seems to be coming from this poorly drained area. For the area between the driveway (concrete in foreground) and the AC unit, I was thinking of either digging a shallow swale with a drain grate embedded in the bottom at one end, or else putting a trench drain in. Which do you think would work better, or do you have a better suggestion?

Surrounding topography is level to the right for about 10-20 feet, then downhill. Behind the camera in this point of view is also downhill and likely a better route for a drain outlet since it wouldn't have to dump into the yard.

 

[themiller]

Can't see the picture.

 

[Jawn]

Odd, works here. Trying again?

 

[canuckian]

Had a similar issue with my last garage. Neighbors sloped their land to dump all their surface runoff at my shop. The building wasn't placed as high above grade as it should have been so every storm would give me some water in the shop. I dug a ditch around the 2 affected sides, put some corrugated pipe in (ran my gutters into it as well), filled up the hole with washed stone with a layer of landscape fabric and ran the pipe to the ditch by the road. You'd just run your pipe to the back of your property.

 

[BADSIX]

Had a similar issue with my last garage. Neighbors sloped their land to dump all their surface runoff at my shop. The building wasn't placed as high above grade as it should have been so every storm would give me some water in the shop. I dug a ditch around the 2 affected sides, put some corrugated pipe in (ran my gutters into it as well), filled up the hole with washed stone with a layer of landscape fabric and ran the pipe to the ditch by the road. You'd just run your pipe to the back of your property.

as above, be sure to use the perforated pipe
Jay D.

 

[xtremek]

You could run the perf pipe into a dry well (I think that's what they call it). If you get a ton of water make it a 30+ gallon can/bucket filled with gravel or small rocks. That's what I did to cure a wet spot in my driveway. I also did it to cure a constantly wet back yard at a previous house.

 

[Jawn]

So french drain instead of a ditch. Ok.

This looks promising... no need to buy/haul gravel.

http://www.homedepot.com/p/NDS-8-in-x-10-ft-Prefabricated-French-Drain-with-Pipe-EZ-0802F/202259347

Might give that a shot.

 

[toplessHO]

looks like red clay?
dont expect it to drain very well if thats whats under the surface as well
best to move it out vs storage 30 gal can fill up quick

 

[Jawn]

looks like red clay?
dont expect it to drain very well if thats whats under the surface as well
best to move it out vs storage 30 gal can fill up quick

Oh yes, it is that wonderful (hah) red mud. Definitely plan to pipe it to the surface somewhere downhill. I'm even having doubts over how well a french drain will work, unless I find dirt from elsewhere to put over top of it.

 

[zmaxmotorsports]

Can you post a bigger,wider angle shot of area around it?

 

[Tdoriot]

Well that's a ***** ! Not even a 5 % slope from the garage away as most codes require. I would highly discourage anyone from plumbing downspouts into any type of french drain that is intended to take water away from a building. I have seen a few flooded basements and crawlspaces over the years from that very mistake. Run the rain drains in a solid pipe to your dispersal location. The ADS corrugate pipe is generally garbage. Use perf PVC rigid with a filter fabric. We dig a ditch, place filter fabric (usually 12' wide in the trench, put the perf pipe in and fill with round drain rock. Fold the fabric over and cover with soil. This all works best if there is a grade to the pipe. Since you have a grade, you can run downhill to a dispersal area of large crushed rip rap to decelerate and disperse the water instead of causing an erosion problem. A small drywell in your soil is going to get you SQUAT !

 

[canuckian]

as above, be sure to use the perforated pipe
Jay D.

lol not sure why I typed corrugated. I used perforated rigid pipe. Been a long day.

 

[theoldwizard1]

I dug a ditch around the 2 affected sides, put some corrugated pipe in (ran my gutters into it as well), filled up the hole with washed stone with a layer of landscape fabric and ran the pipe to the ditch by the road. You'd just run your pipe to the back of your property.

The only thing I would do different is use solid (nor corrugated) pipe and cover it with a sock.

Having proper pitch for drainage to a lower area is crucial.

 

[Jawn]

Why the dislike of corrugated pipe?

 

[boobag]

just from what i can tell, you need a little fill next to the foundation to slope the ground a little bit. if you cant get any slope, then do the french drain.

 

[ihrescue]

I went to the basement / garage this morning to find puddles covering much of it. It seems my drainage issues have bitten me in the **** because of an overnight gully-washer.

In addition to draining water away you could create a rain garden that will help better manage the water as noted in this article http://ucanr.edu/sites/scmg/files/122826.pdf

 

[BADSIX]

Why the dislike of corrugated pipe?[/QUOT

Personally I like the corrugated, it keeps the sediment washing through the pipe. I've seen smooth pipe pack up with mud or sand. probably won't be a problem in your case but I just like to use the corrugated style.
Jay D.

 

[kbs2244]

Gutters and downspouts aimed downhill?

 

[machsnell]

Positive slope away from building always best to remove water on the surface. BUT if you dont have access to bobcat via friend then yes downspouts to corrugated solid pipe to daylight and a french drain (trench, perforated corrugated pipe, clean stone and fabric to daylight) for wet areas where water settles.

Corrugated pipe is fine if it isnt going to see heavy traffic over. cheaper and flexible and easier to install and T connect to daylight.

I would be grading it to fall in Ga clay especially since its only 20 feet to natural slope but i am a dirt guy and have toys to do so.

If no basement or flooding concerns into slab and you wanted to do it cheap and easy cover with filter fabric and lay stone over it and the water will "disappear".

 

[mdufficy]

As others have mentioned, I would run what's called a curtain drain, it's a French drain just closer to the surface level. And I don't like corrugated piping, but the drainage pipe with holes in it. Around that run gravel with geotextile or landscaping fabric around the gravel to stop sand and clay from entering pipe. Then a few inches of top soil on top of gravel. I would have the pipe pitched to run to a leader which leads to a dry well a distance away. Again surround the drywell with fabric to stop the entrance of top soil

 

[Tdoriot]

Every time we have chased drain issues in existing homes, we have found crushed or disconnected ADS corrugated. I shouldn't complain, we did a $ 50,000 repair of a sunken basement wall on a two story a couple of years ago. The downspout ran into a T. It became disconnected and over the years the water settled the foundation and the fill under the slab. The best of course is ABS schedule 40 with glued fittings. But at least in our area, no one makes perf ABS !

 

[Kevin54]

Why the dislike of corrugated pipe?

Why the dislike of corrugated pipe?[/QUOT

Personally I like the corrugated, it keeps the sediment washing through the pipe. I've seen smooth pipe pack up with mud or sand. probably won't be a problem in your case but I just like to use the corrugated style.
Jay D.

Corrugated will hold dirt and mud way quicker than a smooth pipe. When our house was built, the guy ran corrugated pipe from the downs to the pond. The house was built in '88 and we bought it in '93. A few years after that, when we had a heavy rain, the water would back up where the downs went into the pipe and hardly any water would come out of the other end. leaves and such would get stuck in the corrugation and plug them up. Once plugged, you can't run an eel down in them like you can something like a schedule 40 smooth pipe.

If I built a house, I would never use corrugated pipe for anything. It's cheap in cost, and it's cheaply made. We finally cut ours off, and added longer downs to the house all except for one place off of the wife's building that drains into the backyard.

 

[7th Kahuna]

Gutters and downspouts aimed downhill?

Beat me to it. Lots of good ideas here but if you don't have gutters and this hasn't been a problem before, gutters and a bit of grading to move water away from the foundation might just do it.

 

[Jawn]

Gutter guards and temp re-route of the downspouts are part of the plan for tomorrow. I wasn't outside during the gullywasher to see if the gutters were overflowing, but it wouldn't surprise me. I feel sure part of the garage water intrusion (other side of the house from the mudhole) is due to a failure of the pipe from the downspout.

If my back is up to it (sore after cleaning part of the garage today), I'll dig in a drain in the above-pictured area.

 

[Platonic Solid]

Sounds like the perfect excuse to rent a skid-steer and reslope the whole yard.