Wet backyard drainage

[noid]

I'm in the process of looking at a 0.5 acre home that the realtor tells me has slight pooling issues during the wet seasons towards the middle/back of the property.

The property from the front has a street, a home to the left and forest everywhere else.

The home itself seems to be graded and waterproofed fine without issue.

We like the home, and the location, but we are also primarily looking to purchase a lot we can use, particularly for the wife to garden, plant fruit trees, etc.

What would be the solutions for this sort of problem and at what general cost?

 

[Jinks]

Hard to tell without knowing where you're talking about, but the simplest solution would be to truck in a few loads of topsoil & drain towards the wooded area. If the local authorities don't catch you then when the wooded area is built on in a few years you can claim it was that way when you bought.

 

[sixty4]

I would look at a plot plan to make sure that area is not deemed wetlands. Reason I say this is we had a neighbor fill in an area two house's over that did this. However he found out his backyard was in fact a wetland area. He told me by doing so it caused an adverse effect to his neighbors property, They came down on him like stink on poop because the guy filled it in and never checked his on file plot plan/as builts. This was over a year ago and last I spoke with him they were still battling with the town over the fix.

 

[ard]

I installed a 70x200 riding court into a hillside.

Rainy season arrived and I had a spring mid court, even with 24" deep drainageways around the uphill edges

$11k in backhoe and material costs later, I had installed 150 ft of 15"x36" french drains, around the edges AND where the 'seasonal spring' was located

While it might be no big deal, it might also be a big deal.

The best solution is to interrupt the water BEFORE it arrives at wherever it is pooling. Punching a surface drain in the middle of 'the wet area' will almost always be sub-optimal. A combination of surface swales and controlling the elevations is ideal- if that doesnt work, french (curtain) drains.

My 2 cents

PS Most definitely agree with the advice to look at the recorded lot map for ALL designations, wetlands, etc. Make that realtor work for their %....

 

[theoldwizard1]

What would be the solutions for this sort of problem and at what general cost?

The solution is a French drain. Go to YouTube and search for "french darin".
The problem is, where is the water going to go ?

Most cities will not allow you to send it to the street, unless maybe there is an open ditch. The woods belong to some one and if they find out you are sending rain water their way, you could be in deep trouble.

The only other solution is dry well. Basically an underground chamber that let the water leech back into the soil. In my TINY backyard, I have a 6x6x5 hole with one barrel in the center and then surrounded by 3/4" crushed limestone. You could use multiple plastic barrels, soak away crates or even crushed reclaimed concrete. The important thing is line the inside of the hole (bottom, sides and top) with heavy duty landscape fabric so dirt will not travel in but the water will travel out.

You would need to hire a soils/hydrology engineer to figure out how big this would need to be. It could easily run $10k-$50k depending on the size of your problem.

If it is just a "seasonably high" water table/spring, your screwed.

 

[jetlag]

Bring in someone who knows french drains. We are on 1.5 acres, with a large gravel parking lot, which slopes down towards one of our buildings. Six months after moving in, we had a flood in the building. It was a freakishly wet week, so we told ourselves it had simply overpowered the existing french drain. About a year and a half later, I averted another flood in the building with sandbags, but a month later, the water overtook my efforts, and the building flooded for a second time. Fool me once.....

We brought in an expert this summer, who dug up the existing french drain, which was improperly installed, and too small for what it was intended to do. On top of that, it was completely plugged. New french drain installed for roughly 4K, correctly tied into two other drain systems, and some re-grading of the lot has fixed our problem.

 

[brownbagg]

french drain

 

[kobaltic]

Just to rule it out, is this the leech field to a septic system?

 

[Radix2]

You guys and your "French drain" are like clockwork.

A French drain has its place - but it is not a first choice, and most are half assed solutions at best.

The first choice is to get a proper grade on the lot if it is possible.

We know basically nothing about the situation here or what options are available.

As a general rule there should be an acceptable way to drain a platted lot without resorting to fragile tiles and drains. For all we know, the original builder put in a lot of fill in the area and it has subsided....or it is a wetland...or whatever.

Op- where are you? Do you have pictures if the area? Low areas to drain to.? Street ditches? Storm sewers? Septic?, Etc etc.

This could be a big deal or a morning job.