Draining my backyard swamp

[Gee Ray]

I would wait until the ground dries out. The work you need to do will require a a lot of digging and smoothing and that is much easier with drier soil. The swale to the creek would seam to be the right way to go at the least cost. You might dig a plastic 55 gallon drum into the low spot and use a sump pump to speed up the drying of the soil as a temporary solution to the water problem. This is the dry well that you were referring to earlier.

I would avoid the rock lined type of swale. They idea sounds great but in short order the plant life that will move in will become ugly. Spraying it with a herbicide to keep up the nice look will be expensive and hard on the environment.

The use of leaves, tree trunks and mulch, while a way to build up the soil will result in a soft mussy yard for many years to come.

To remove the soil that you now have in place and add fill dirt then replacing the top soil sounds like a good solution. Along with the use of the swales to to move the water. Also the use of a subsoiler would seam be a good thing to do.

I would look into buying a box blade to move and level the soil. This is not an easy task with just a front end loader.

Also take a look at the elevation of the rest of your yard. Just to make sure that if you raise the level of the swamp you will not just move the water to another spot in the yard.

With the creek running across the yard have you checked on flood insurance for your house?

 

[aczlan]

from the pictures it doesn't look like you have a surface water problem it looks like you have a subsurface water problem.....meaning high water table......that will fluctuate throughout the year and if that is the case then I'd recommend talking to the locals and see what they do as the local soil permeability comes into play with how well the water will run through it....if it's sandy then water will run right through it and swales should work well but if it's clay the waters not going to flow and you'll need a different solution.......Jack

I would lean in that direction, is there a low spot where you can send the water to? If you do, my first plan would be to dig (or have someone dig) some trenches to the low spot (every 20'), then put in some geotextile cloth, some gravel, then drain tile, then more gravel, then wrap the geotextile cloth over the top of the gravel and backfill with dirt on top.
Here is someone showing how they do a high end system to do what the OP wants to do:

Aaron Z

 

[MACflyer]

Thank you everyone for the input, lots of good information. I think my best course of action will be to let it dry as suggested, and then I'll come through with a sub soiler to improve the compaction issue. Finally I'll dig another trench down to the creek and run a tile drain like in that video. The creek isn't big enough to worry about flooding my house, it's more of a swampy stream a few inches deep and this is at the wettest part of the year.

 

[Industrial Toys]

You have what you have. I simply don't understand, with all the building codes, how it is acceptable to build a house that requires a sump pump, to keep the basement dry. That would seem like a totally wrong place to build a house, if you ask me. At least, one with a basment or toilets.

 

[bcp]

If you don't build a pond, I would re-contour the yard so there was no flat part. Make it gently rolling with the low spots draining to the creek. No flat ground = no standing water.

Bruce

 

[kenmbz]

I have water draining from up the mountain. I put in a big swale in order to move that much water.
Meant to handle a 4"/hour rainfall (and yes, it has been tested).
At the widest it is about 5 feet across and 3 or so feet deep with a fan out to the back of my yard.
No more flooding where I need it to be dry.
Spent a lot of time watching the water flow and calculating how much water per acre and through the pipe under the road.

 

[Captain Dirty]

You have what you have. I simply don't understand, with all the building codes, how it is acceptable to build a house that requires a sump pump, to keep the basement dry. That would seem like a totally wrong place to build a house, if you ask me. At least, one with a basment or toilets.

Six decades ago I worked for a builder. I was the kid they sent into the percolation test pit to dig a 5-gallon hole and pour a bucket of water in it. I would then stick a ruler in the hole and then call out as the water receded each inch. About 20 years ago when they did a perc test for my new septic system, the engineer placed a 5 gallon pail with holes in the sides into the hole and slowly decanted the water into the perforated bucket. The engineer later explained that dumping water into the hole drove the small particles between larger particles blocking passages and causing it to take longer to recede. I am sure they have become increasingly sophisticated performing the test and can now get swamps and ponds to perc.

 

[saturnalley]

I would wait until the ground dries out. The work you need to do will require a a lot of digging and smoothing and that is much easier with drier soil. The swale to the creek would seam to be the right way to go at the least cost. You might dig a plastic 55 gallon drum into the low spot and use a sump pump to speed up the drying of the soil as a temporary solution to the water problem. This is the dry well that you were referring to earlier.

I would avoid the rock lined type of swale. They idea sounds great but in short order the plant life that will move in will become ugly. Spraying it with a herbicide to keep up the nice look will be expensive and hard on the environment.

The use of leaves, tree trunks and mulch, while a way to build up the soil will result in a soft mussy yard for many years to come.

To remove the soil that you now have in place and add fill dirt then replacing the top soil sounds like a good solution. Along with the use of the swales to to move the water. Also the use of a subsoiler would seam be a good thing to do.

I would look into buying a box blade to move and level the soil. This is not an easy task with just a front end loader.

Also take a look at the elevation of the rest of your yard. Just to make sure that if you raise the level of the swamp you will not just move the water to another spot in the yard.

With the creek running across the yard have you checked on flood insurance for your house?

An experimental approach with your various materials seems unnecessary. Since it looks like you do have runoff on the perimeter, start scraping, hauling, shoveling onto tarps and dragging, whatever it takes to steal from where it's already sloping away, to fill in the low area. The grass will come in; it will look like the rest of the yard. This conservative advice is coming from a person without a tractor (I do have a Ditchwitch).

 

[Bill Guenthner]

My entire backyard has had standing water since I moved into my house in December. I suspect it's primarily due to compaction, as the previous owners had a good 15+ trees cut down back there. The standing water seems to be in all the ruts created by the tree trucks. Fortunately for me, they left all of the logs stacked on the edge of the yard. Unfortunately, they're far too big for a chipper.

My plan is to scrape the entire back yard down about 8 inches or so with my FEL. Next I'll cut the logs into 4 inch strips, and use them like pepperonis to fill in the excavated yard. The next layer will be mulch and other compost type material, and then I'll finally cover it all with the dirt I originally dig up. Any input on this idea would be appreciated, not entirely sure if it's the best way to do it but it's the best way I can think of using the materials and equipment I have.
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Just cut a swale so the water can run off. Digging up all the topsoil is not a Good idea.

 

[jcman]

When we built our arena we knew we had a water problem and I didn't have a backhoe so hired an operator to dig a 2' deep trench along the high sides and put 8" perforated drainpipe in the bottom sloped everything to the low side and filled the trench with about 1" drainrock. I call it a curtain drain. Solved all the water problems flowing down hill toward the arena. A swale may work well for you in this situation.