Drying up the front yard

[AndyM]

For those of you just tuning in, here is a picture of my front yard taken about a week ago. The ground slopes downhill from the house towards the willow tree and then back uphill again towards the road. The road is approximately at the same level as the house, or possibly a little higher.

 

[AndyM]

After doing a little digging and a little bit of pumping, I managed to get everything drained out and I've laid some drain pipe at the lowest points.

 

[AndyM]

Notice the line on the tree where the water level was a few days ago.

 

[AndyM]

Because the land runs uphill towards the road, I chose to discharge my spouting and my basement sump pump into the low spot in the front yard. After the heavy rains last week, everything backed into the basement since it had nowhere else to go.

Now, everything runs into the low spot from the house spouting and sump pump. It then runs to the sump crock at the next arrow. It then gets pumped uphill to the ditch along the road.

I've got gravel coming tomorrow to cover the pipe. After that, a layer of good porous topsoil and some grass seed.

 

[Poppa]

Andy, is the ditch on your side of the road or do you have to pump the water over the road? I couldn't see a ditch in the pictures but couldn't tell if this was just due to the angle the shot was taken.

Forgot to say, I hope it works out.

Mike

 

[AndyM]

Here's what it looks like from the other side, looking towards the house...

Things have drained pretty good considering the water went across my driveway on one side and over across my neighbor's driveway on the other side a week ago.

It's been only on rare occasions in the past year where water hasn't come past the small tree in the front of this picture!

Hopefully, this will make everything drain much better. After two rains the past couple of days, it seems to be working. We'll see how it works after the gravel and topsoil gets spread over the top! I'll post pictures after that part gets finished...

 

[AndyM]

I tied into the pump for the curtain drain for my septic system.

A curtain drain is a perforated pipe that runs around the perimeter of the leach field, about six inches higher than the leach lines. In theory, it's supposed to collect groundwater runoff BEFORE it gets to the septic field to prevent the lines from being saturated from rainwater.

The discharge for the curtain drain emptied into the sump crock and gets pumped out to the road. I chose to tie into this, rather than install another pump. Here's where my new drain pipe ties into the perforated line for the curtain drain. This will also be filled with gravel.

 

[beenthere]

Not sure I understand, but it sounds like you are saying that your drain field for your septic is below the surface water collection system. But surely that can't be, so I am missing something. /forums/images/graemlins/frown.gif

 

[AndyM]

Mike, there is a shallow (less than one foot) ditch along the road in front of my house. All of the water gets discharged there and runs down the ditch. The ditch in front of my house is the highest point along the road, so the county didn't dig it out very deep so it would run downhill down the road.

The ditch that runs along the other side of the road is 2 1/2 to 3 feet deep. Several people here have tried to get me to run a pipe under the road to the deeper ditch, but I haven't been able to bring myself to bore under a county road! /forums/images/graemlins/crazy.gif
Maybe someday I'll be able to talk the county into installing a pipe under the road. /forums/images/graemlins/smirk.gif

 

[AndyM]

<font color="blue"> Not sure I understand, but it sounds like you are saying that your drain field for your septic is below the surface water collection system. But surely that can't be, so I am missing something. </font>

I guess I didn't explain it well. I'm better at thinking something in my head than putting it into words! /forums/images/graemlins/blush.gif

The blue lines in this picture represent my septic field.

The red lines represent the existing curtain drain around the septic field and that runoff gets pumped to the road.

I put the drain pipe in the lowest spot in the yard to dry things up and tied into the existing curtain drain and pump with the pipe represented by the green line. That low area will get covered with gravel and topsoil. In theory, the water that used to collect there will filter through the gravel into the perforated pipe and get pumped uphill to the ditch along the road.