Draining my backyard swamp

[BackRoad]

The Hydroblox information looks pretty sweet if it actually works like they say.

On their website is a video of a residential installation with a fair amount of information and Q&A on the product included.

Looks promising...

 

[Danica]

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.
View attachment 691055View attachment 691056

Aargh, sounds like a recipient for disaster. Bring in a couple hundred yards of fill and build it up.

 

[Robert_Actual]

I would attempt to control the source. Does your house or your neighbors house just use splash blocks on the downspouts? Where does all the water from the driveway and/or road go? Where does your gutter and/or drainage ditch along the road dump to?

A few years back I ended up digging a curtain drain between my yard and my neighbor’s that ran downhill toward a stream. I then asked if I could tie in their down spouts if I did the work - they agreed. I then tied in my down spouts to a French drain that ran

Lastly I dug out the ditch on the side of the road from my neighbors place, all the way out to the county road.


I think the whole project cost me about 10k in drain rock, fabric, and drain pipe and took me a few months to complete a few days at a time here and there.

Gave this a few months and it solved the problem.

 

[old and tired]

10k would buy a whole lot of dirt.... like a mountain!!!

 

[Robert_Actual]

10k would buy a whole lot of dirt.... like a mountain!!!

I guess it depends on your zip code.

 

[old and tired]

I guess it depends on your zip code.

We have small mountains!!!

 

[MACflyer]

Well over the last few months I was able to put in about 200 feet of drain pipe

Old and Tired was extremely generous and dropped off a sub soiler, I made multiple passes to loosen things up. The area was already somewhat lumpy, and now it was completely rutted. Figured a complete resurface was in order, so I went over the entire area with a box blade followed by a tiller.

Next I spread about 13 or so yards of topsoil over the lower patches.

Finally, I was planning on reseeding. However, the grass has come back with no help from me. It's still fairly thin and patchy, but I'm going to wait until spring and then just overseed as needed.

This is what it looked like before I started!

 

[lilranch2001]

Looks good, but its hard to tell what the wet rainy freeze season will bring......

Hopefully the drainage you put in will be effective

 

[workinonit]

I'm not sure where you are but if that piece of property were in SC it would be wetlands which can't be drained without creating replacement wetlands somewhere else. The fines for draining wetlands are huge.

 

[fried1765]

Well over the last few months I was able to put in about 200 feet of drain pipe
View attachment 713642

Old and Tired was extremely generous and dropped off a sub soiler, I made multiple passes to loosen things up. The area was already somewhat lumpy, and now it was completely rutted. Figured a complete resurface was in order, so I went over the entire area with a box blade followed by a tiller.
View attachment 713643

Next I spread about 13 or so yards of topsoil over the lower patches. View attachment 713644


Finally, I was planning on reseeding. However, the grass has come back with no help from me. It's still fairly thin and patchy, but I'm going to wait until spring and then just overseed as needed.
View attachment 713645


This is what it looked like before I started!
View attachment 713646

Spring seeding is usually not the best idea.
In the Spring, weeds and grass germinate simultaneously.
With Fall seeding, the grass seed germinates, but the weeds do not.
Then, in the Spring, the grass has a head start, and will choke out the weeds that are attempting to grow.

 

[JJT]

If you cannot drain the water, it's a good spot for a pond, and that will give you material to build up the surrounding area.

 

[MACflyer]

Spring seeding is usually not the best idea.
In the Spring, weeds and grass germinate simultaneously.
With Fall seeding, the grass seed germinates, but the weeds do not.
Then, in the Spring, the grass has a head start, and will choke out the weeds that are attempting to grow.

Thanks for the tip, I'll do it this fall instead.

 

[m1garand762]

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.

Drainage works wonders. My property was swampy when we bought it and I tiled it front to back and now it’s dry it took a few months for the tile to dry it out completely but I could see results after a week or so. One of the lines I buried on the other side of the creek has been running an inch stream for 2 years non stop you may be surprised by how much water you will be removing