Help With Driveway Drainage

[UOFan]

I'm not sure how much snow you get at your location or how you handle it. If you use a plow, sooner or later, you're going to plow up those 8" cinder blocks. Yeah, you can mark them with stakes but they're just something else to maintain.

They are also difficult to mow up against. You wind up using an edger or string trimmer which adds to your lawn grooming time.

I gave up using hardscape borders on my gravel driveway years ago for these reasons. I now use a shallow drainage swale instead. Much easier to maintain.

We don't get enough snow down here to plow. The most snow i've seen was about 6" that melted within 48 hours. It was an anomaly, but I wish it happened every year because it was fun for the family.

Good point about the lawncare times, I don't mind adding an extra 150' of trimming, and really i've got a lot bigger issues with the lawn than some weeds growing too high against hardscape....my philosophy currently is "if it's a green and growing, it's good".

Regarding the swale, I would love to take that route. However, there is no good outlet location on the downslope side (left in the photos) of the driveway. I am planning out how to have all the runoff from the left side transfer to the right side (where there is already a swale in place). Probably going to do a combination of regrading and 2x broad dips.

 

[nyone]

I have one of these laser levels with reciever. They work amazingly well. I bought it used a few years ago to do my septic. I have since used it for many other projects. Recently I needed to move the overflow of a drainage ditch. 5min setup to find that I could just dig a shallow 2inx8in wide trench with a shovel to get the water where I wanted.

If you have the tools you will find a use for it.

 

[UOFan]

Broke ground last night. Thank you for everyone’s suggestions. I’ll post updates as it rolls along.

Step one: rough cut a small ditch and roughly level the driveway. Then, I’ll set up the rotary laser and start getting precise.

 

[UOFan]

Finished for the day. The driveway has gone from sloped to level-ish. Still have quite a bit of earth to move to give it a slight grade towards the trench

 

[UOFan]

More work updates: got the grade decent. Ended up moving a massive amount of dirt! Shovel for scale in the left of the dirt pile.

Extended the rough cut into the woods about 100’ and had to use my pallet forks to move an old bridge. We may use it later so it was easier to just pick the whole thing up.

Continuing todays work will be working on the cut, smoothing out the grade on the berm to prevent erosion and allow grass to to grow, and moving more dirt.

These tractors work hard for 24.9 HP.

 

[2manyrocks]

Doesn't look like you have large rocks in your ground. That makes a huge difference.

 

[EddieWalker]

You're making a lot of progress. What I've found when I dig ditches is that I always end up with a high spot that doesn't flow, and a low spot that holds water after a big rain. I always walk out to my ditches right after a big rain to see what they are doing, and what I can do to make them work better. Last week I found a built up are of pine needles and small sticks that where blocking my ditch and sending water over it's bank.

 

[UOFan]

Doesn't look like you have large rocks in your ground. That makes a huge difference.

Yeah no big rocks at all. Really just sand and clay.

You're making a lot of progress. What I've found when I dig ditches is that I always end up with a high spot that doesn't flow, and a low spot that holds water after a big rain. I always walk out to my ditches right after a big rain to see what they are doing, and what I can do to make them work better. Last week I found a built up are of pine needles and small sticks that where blocking my ditch and sending water over it's bank.

Yeah good point, I’ve been using the laser to check general slope but I did a water test today and found a few flatter spots.

Would you guys recommend laying down some landscape fabric in the cut before I put down some drainage stone?

 

[Rockbadchild]

depends whether or not you want vegetation to grow …

it is some very nice material you got there so other then slowing the vegetation growth i don’t see any advantage to put fabric down other then maybe reduce erosion

 

[UOFan]

On the sloped berm next to the cut I’m planning on seeding with something that’ll do well in the summer (Bahia or Bermuda…open to suggestions but it needs to tolerate sand), and then getting some erosion control rolled fabric to lay over the top while it germinates.

Inside the cut, I’ll just do some sort of stone. I don’t necessarily care if it sinks some, as the point of the cut is to be lower than the drive. There are a lot more experienced guys on here than me, so far I’ve changed my plans a few times based off the posts here.

Edit: trench is 85% done and shaped, image below