Spring problem

[stevecmo]

I'm building a new house on 10 acres. The builder hit a spring when digging the foundation. We put in a french drain that drains to daylight, into an existing drain swale. It works fine; dried up the basement.....but the problem is it continues to run onto the neighbors property!

The builder says he checked with his attorney and it's legally not a problem. I told the builder it's easy for him to say, he doesn't have to live next to the guy. Anyone run into this before? Any solutions. I can trench it across his property and into a creek but that won't be cheap. Or I can pump it to my pond.....again not cheap. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

 

[ikline]

A cousin of mine had an issue where his neighbor ran his downspouts through pipe onto my cousins property. During rains it was like a flood going through his job. He asked his neighbor to run the pipe to another location and he refused. My cousin contacted a lawyer and they went to court. My cousin won and was awarded damages to property. The Judge said someone about since the neighbor changed the direction of the water he was liable (something like that, it was a long time ago) You might want to contact one yourself. Or at least out of courtesy direct it somewhere else if you can. With 10 acres you should be able to go somewhere with it. If you have any pictures it would help. Good Luck

 

[ByronBob]

Have you discussed the situation with your neighbor? He may not care or work with you on a solution to keep you from breaking the bank. Be ready to talk to him and have some ideas available for the conversation.

 

[DaveNay]

Do you know how many guys on this site (me included) would do backflips to get a spring fed pond on their property?!?!

/forums/images/graemlins/shocked.gif /forums/images/graemlins/shocked.gif /forums/images/graemlins/tongue.gif /forums/images/graemlins/tongue.gif

Dave

 

[stevecmo]

The builders attorney said it's been tested in court before here in MO and as long as the water is put into a natural drainage ditch it's not a problem. (at least not his! /forums/images/graemlins/cool.gif)

It's a long skinny 10 acres. About 320' wide by 1320' deep. Pretty much all of my property slopes toward his. I'm in about the lowest portion of mine, so I would have to pump it to do much of anything with it on my land.

I have talked to him. Or rather he talked to me when he came out to the fence and wanted to know what I was going to do about it. I asked him if he ever thought about a pond. He said he really had no use for one. /forums/images/graemlins/confused.gif

The only things I can think of are 1) his new pond 2) trench it across his land to the creek or 3) pump it about 300' to my pond.

We're about 11 inches ahead of normal rainfall. Hopefully in a normal year it wouldn't even run. But I guess I need to keep him happy.

Any other thoughts or suggestions would help greatly.

Thanks for the comments so far.

 

[SPIKER]

Steve:

here in Ohio you can not change the dirrection, location or amount of water flowing FROM you're property onto the neibors with out getting in trouble. build a pond it has to flow exactly as it has done in the past (any over flows that is)

since this is s SPRING that may or maynot flow year round then I would think that letting it leave the property naturally would cover you're butt but it maybe worth KEEPING the PEACE and put in a deep french drain or tile it... ask the neibor for ideas, and make the case clear that in reality you don't have to do much of anything but that you are wiling to try and see eye to eye..

Mark M /forums/images/graemlins/frown.gif

 

[DiskDoctr]

Stevecmo,

Have you considered a drywell?

Essentially, this is a hole in the ground, filled with rocks into which a pipe runs to allow the water to gently seep into the ground. All is under the ground- nothing on the surface.

On a small scale, picture a french drain running under ground, into a 5 gal bucket buried in the ground, filled with stones, and holes drilled all through the bucket.

We did this in reverse for an area in front of our large garage. We had french drains running to the corner (existing drainage system) and wanted to be able to drain surface and local water into the system to prevent water from running against the building.

We drilled a bunch of 3/4" holes in a 55 gal plastic drum without a lid (blue, held olive juice or something at one time), buried it in the ground, ran the existing pipe into it, and a new one out of it to carry water away, then filled it with stone and gravel, then gravel on top and blended into the edge of the driveway.

Works for all sorts of things, but especially nice to run water away, but don't have anywhere to go...

You could do something similar, except bury it deeper, cover it gravel, then with landscape fabric, then cover it with lawn.

Good luck, and let us know how you make out.

-JC

 

[Darren]

How much flow are you getting? Can you tell where the water may be coming from? Is there other land uphill from you? Does your land include the highest point in the drainge area? How much distance is there from the end of your drain to the property line?

What type of soil do you have?

 

[Henro]

At first I thought maybe you should accept responsibility and ask the other guy what he wants you to do about it. And that if it were me I would try to accomodate him...

But on second thought...well...really...it is a nusiance to YOU as well as HE isn't it?

So perhaps it is an act of God that the spring appeared. Who can say for sure?

Too bad you BOTH have to suffer as the result of that spring appearing.

Tough luck for both? I would say so...

So what can BOTH do to make things better? Should only one be responsible for the solution?

One may say yes, one may say no, or both may work together.

It is not like it is YOUR intentional action.

Don't really know the answer, but getting the law's opinion would not hurt. Then worst case it can come down to, OK...sorry...we will just have to live with it...OR MAYBE...I will fix the problem...bottom line is what the law says.

Never hurts to try to what is right in your own mind first though... /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

 

[stevecmo]

Thanks for the comments guys.

The spring seems to start at the uphill side of the garage. Then flows across what is to be my new basement. The french drain starts where the spring starts and is piped to daylight about 75' from the property line. There is not much flow right now. You can barely see the water moving. It's saturated his property for about 100' past the property line.

I thought about a dry well. I'm sure that would work for just run off water but I'm afraid if this spring runs year round it would just fill up and then I'd be back to square one. Maybe if you put enough leach lines (like a septic lateral field) it would work. What do you guys think? There is a lot of clay but the soil around the drain is pretty good.

If I decide to pump it into my pond I'm thinking that there is enough surface water that it would evaporate as fast as it would enter the pond. The pond is farther back on the property. The overflow from the pond flows naturally onto this guys property too. So if the spring water causes some overflow I don't think he would have as big a problem with it since he doesn't use that part of his property.

It would cost more initially to trench across his land to the creek but if I pump it to the pond I've got the cost of running the pump. Any ideas what it would cost to run a small pump for this kind of application? My builder is supposed to be
getting me a price to trench to the creek.

Keep the feedback coming.