Wet weather spring in driveway

[DJ54]

I was thinking of using that pipe with the sock, but read in some threads here, where several had them plug, from silt plugging the cover on the pipe. So went with what I've had good luck with in the past.

Guess a person just has to use their own judgement, in their particular situation.

 

[dodge man]

I might look at putting a drain tile on the high side also and catch the water before it gets to the road. Lay one parallel to the road that is, and then run it across the road and drain it.

 

[2manyrocks]

Go buy some real drain fabric used by road contractors. It isn't that expensive if you get it from them. Call around and find it. Don't use that weedblock junk from the home store.

Put the fabric in the hole. Add some 3/4 gravel. Put your pipe in. cover with more 3/4 gravel. Wrap drain fabric around the whole thing. Then fill with whatever rock you want at that point.

Compared to the cost of everything else and redoing this, pipe is cheap. I see your logic in putting pipe in at the low point, and I see what Teg is suggesting, too. Doesn't hurt to put in two drain lines in case there's another point at which the water comes out that you haven't spotted yet.

The time to pipe it out is now. You don't want to tear it all up again putting in another pipe later.

 

[nrc17gto]

Well, I got it mostly done today. Many pics below. I combined everyone's suggestions and applied the best way I knew how for my situation. I still have to clean up the exit ditch some but I am going to wait for everything to dry up before I do that.


WetWeatherSpringFix by nrc17gto, on Flickr


WetWeatherSpringFix by nrc17gto, on Flickr


WetWeatherSpringFix by nrc17gto, on Flickr


WetWeatherSpringFix by nrc17gto, on Flickr


WetWeatherSpringFix by nrc17gto, on Flickr

Here is a video of the water coming out of the end. Funny how that little bit of water makes such a mess.

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oxq1dLDiET4]Water exiting from french drain in wet weather spring. - YouTube[/ame]

Thanks again to everyone and I hope I am DONE with this!

Nick

 

[2manyrocks]

Since you have a natural moat, you should have built a draw bridge to keep out unwelcome intruders.

 

[Obed]

Here is a video of the water coming out of the end. Funny how that little bit of water makes such a mess.

Water exiting from french drain in wet weather spring. - YouTube

Thanks again to everyone and I hope I am DONE with this!

Nick

Nick,
It looks like you did a real good job on draining that spring to the other side of your road. That video shows a lot of water flow. I bet it was satisfying seeing the water come out of that pipe.

It'll be interesting to see if your road dries out and stays dry. I'm betting it will. Let us know how it turns out.
Obed

 

[Michelle K linnane]

Hi Guys
I live in an area that sometimes even when it is dry you need to pump a ditch you are working in. My solution would of not to dug but to add big stone. I have a field that I want access to and the best way is to add material do not dig when it is that wet. I pushed in two stonewall fences and that was my road base.
My suggest might be to dig a pond and use the material from the pond to add to the road. Once you have the road a foot or so higher then the normal ground you will always be able to use it. Even clay can be a good road base if it is higher then the surrounding ground. I know it is a pain to truck dirt.
But you could use your back hoe bucket looks like it may hold a yard of dirt.
If it was me I would adding material, espically if I want to dig a pond. Not placing drains in. It did not look as though it had a good place to drain. If there is not good place to have the water run off, a good solution is to have to road shed the water.
These are my thoughts. I would fill that back in and go dig a pond and come back when it is drier and draw material from the pond to the road and use as base elevate the road. Then add filter fabric and top with crusher run.
Oh well what do I know. I did not read all the post on the topic so I am not sure if anybody suggested this.

 

[nrc17gto]

Nick,
It looks like you did a real good job on draining that spring to the other side of your road. That video shows a lot of water flow. I bet it was satisfying seeing the water come out of that pipe.

It'll be interesting to see if your road dries out and stays dry. I'm betting it will. Let us know how it turns out.
Obed

Thanks! It is VERY satisfying seeing that water flow. I sure hope it stays dried out. If the weather is OK this weekend I plan on getting out there and spreading/compacting more dirt so I can get some gravel on it. It has been tore up for way too long now.

I'll report back when the water flow slows way down on how the drive did.

Nick

 

[EddieWalker]

I just came across this thread and wanted to offer my thoughts. While it looks like you did a nice job of what you did, I don't think it will be a long term solution. It should last for awhile, but that will depend on how much water you get out of the ground.

Basically, what you did was create a collection point for all the surrounding water in the hill. Water will always take the path of least resistance, and digging a pit, and filling it with gravel. The drain pipe will drain the water as long as it never gets pluged up, but it will never remove the moisture or slow down the flow of water into the pit.

Since the pit will always be a wet area, it will be impossible to get compaction of anything that you put over top of it. Loose gravel is great for holding and collecting water, it is terrible for building on top of.

Michelle said that you need to build up the road. I agree with this. When I started reading the thread, I was going to suggest digging pits on either side of the road to drain the water and building the road up with at least two feet of well compacted soil. Then top with at least 4 inches of road base rock. Not gravel, and not recycled ashpalt. Road base that is at least 4 inches thick will compact and form a water proof road that will support the weight of the heaviest vehicles. With your situation, I would go twice that thick over that area, and 4 inches for the rest of the road. If you want to use recycled asphalt, you can put it over the road base after it's compacted. The asphault does not have any strength to it and is only good as a finish. With well compacted road base, ashpalt doesn't really do anything. The road base will smooth out real nice.

Now that you have the collection pit, I think you will need to put the road off to the side of it. Hopefuly it will pull enough water out of the hill that you can build up a solid road without having to make too big of a detour.

French drains have their place. This isn't such a place.

Eddie

 

[Buppies]

The op did a fabulous job with this project doing everything by the book. This solution will work for a long time to come.previous experience with parking lots that had similar problems were done using this method and with large trucks running on have had no failures in over four years and counting. Again job well done