Drainage Help Needed!

[VaTractorGirl]

This will be the second time I am attempting to fix this problem. The first pic shows the house site and grade so you kidnda get the idea. The problem is that to the right of the house there is a hill that goes steadily up and finally levels so that the house is basically sitting in a hole. The second pic shows the far right side of the house (if your looking at it) which is right outside our bedroom window and is also where the septic tanks and pump station is located and everything pumps up to the top of the slope/hill about 560ft away. Water comes down the hill in a hard rain and we orignially had a swale (quite large) to divert the water away from the tanks (didn't want to overload the pump by having to pump rain water and bog out the septic field) and also away from the house. I didn't like how the swale looked and have tried various things now to try and fix it. The latest has been that I took the box grader and set it at an extreme angle so I could dig a trench, which worked. I then laid the 4" black pipe connected all the downspouts on that side of the house to it and took it around the front of the house. Problem now is that even though I checked the fall for the pipe, that in a hard rain it can't get rid of the water fast enough. So any suggestions? My husband wants to rent a trencher for this weekend (now he gets involved) and bury the pipe deeper. While we are doing this I am also trying to lower the grade on the right side of the house, it is only about 6-8' until the sidings starts and it is too hard to weedeat and such. But the more I lower the grade the lower everything would need to be. I also still have not planted my grass seed because I ended up getting zoysia seed and the last date to plant in this area is around the beginning of July. So I guess I will be planting next spring! Sorry this is so long winded, I think I just spent way to much time trying different things on my own.

 

[VaTractorGirl]

I can only get the second pic to come up. It is saying the first is too big

 

[Knight9]

Tried to lighten the photo.

Kevin

 

[VaTractorGirl]

This pic is from the back of the house so it kinda shows the problem This pic is older, the black pipe seen has now been buried and everything is hooked up and goes around the front of the house

 

[Knight9]

2nd photo lightened.

Hope it's not just my machine that sees the originals too dark to see /forums/images/graemlins/blush.gif

Kevin

 

[MicroPilot]

No, it's not your machine, those pictures are dark.

 

[beenthere]

Thanks for 'brightening' those pics. They were black on my screen. (I think I have a monitor that is on the very edge of being tossed, as the 'bright' is as far as it will go, and most pics I bring up are on the dark side - except ones I download from my camera).

Can't tell from the description, but water will only run when there is enough slope and enough room to run. Frustrating to deal with and, as in my case, my house is about 2' lower in the ground than it should be. But that (house elevation) isn't something that seems to become evident until the final landscaping and big rainstorm. /forums/images/graemlins/crazy.gif

 

[MicroPilot]

So is the problem that the run-off from upslope gets in the septic tank and/or that the downspout drains can't handle the flow of the water?

Maybe look at the threads here dealing with installing French Drains . These should be able to be scaled to handle any amount of water. Another suggestion would be to seperate the downspout drains from the run-off diversion.

 

[VaTractorGirl]

Both things are the problem. Along with with house sitting too far in the ground, but unless I wanted to walk up a flight of stairs to get in the house from my garage that is how it had to be. I orignially was going to take all pipe and put it into one large french drain. By the way when I was reading other posts on this subject most are using perforated pipe, I am not I am using solid black flexible pipe. The problem with the french drain is that I would need a very big hole and the fact that at this end of the property the soil doesn't perk, so IMO if I installed a french drain that had that much water coming into it, it would never dissipate. And I would think just start bubbling out the top of the ground.

 

[MicroPilot]

Well, you have to have the drain go somewhere. It's just not a hole in the ground filled with gravel. You'd have to plan it out and slope the trench to someplace lower. Is there anywhere on your property thats lower than your house?