Whenever we have a heavy rainfall my backyard floods. If we've had a lot of rain and the ground is saturated, the water can sit for days. I wouldn't mind if I didn't have indoor/outdoor dogs.
I'd like to somehow drain the backyard. Would it be easy to install some sort of drainage system using PVC pipe -- something one
50-year-old woman could do herself? Or should I find someone to do it for me? And who would I call -- a plumber? Would this require a city permit?
Without seeing what has to be drained and where to, I can't answer. It may be some re-grading is needed, or a little fill in spots. You may want to talk to a landscaper with some experience in that. You want to avoid draining your yard into the neighbor's yard as that can cause some legal problems. Ed snipped-for-privacy@snet.net
I know I'll catch all sorts of flak for this, but what the hell. You can probably install something, but first, answer some questions. Trust me - there's a method to what appears to be madness. You might be able to solve or minimize the problem for under fifty bucks.
1) Who mows your lawn? You, or someone else? If someone else, is it hired help, or someone in the family?2) Do you live in a part of the country where spring is cool, gets warmer as summer approaches, and summer gets really hot? In other words, not one of the desert states.
3) If you answered "yes" to number 2, at what point in the spring is the lawnmower adjusted to its HIGHEST setting?4) Has the lawn ever been rolled to make it flatter?
5) Do you use a lawn service for fertilization?
I mow my own lawn.
I live in central Texas, so, yes.
Um, I don't adjust the lawnmower height unless I've let the grass get extremely high.
No.
No.
Basically the whole backyard needs some drainage.
I was thinking of burying some PVC pipe just under the surface from the backyard into the frontyard and into the street. I have seen that a couple of my neighbors have set ups like that. I'm thinking they did it themselves. (I mean, them, not the city.)
Would photos help?
The issue is:
Where does the water go when it gets deep enough? You want to make the water go there quicker. Make sure you do not dump the water toward or against the house. If there is sufficient fall (change of elevation) available, the water can be routed by surface drainage - think of a grass covered ditch that the water flows in when it rains, as long as it has somewhere, like the street, to get to.
Shallow pipes through the curb are not legal in most municipalities (it's not your curb), though there are sure plenty of them. Most contractors won't break out the curb. Shallow pipes will burn the Bermuda grass brown once the heat gets up.
There are many ways to deal with drainage including creation of sump pit with an electric pump. The best solutions deal with it naturally.
You need a local construction man. Landscapers and concrete men usually understand grade issues better than others.
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The mower: Set it at its highest setting (height above the ground) and leave it there. The grass will develop a better root system, which improves the ability of the soil to accept water. Not perfect, but better. Cutting grass putting-green short is unnatural for the plant, much like removing 80% of the leaves from your trees. The only way to sustain such grass is by the application of excessive fertilizer.
Has the property always had drainage problems?
Use the perforated ribbed plastic piping, sold at home improvement stores. Dig a trench from where there is water to where you want it drained--this is the tricky part! Lay the pipe, cover with landscape fabric, apply a layer of gravel, fill with dirt, reseed. No permit needed. The longer the trench, the bigger the job. A landscaper may help you. Flag the wet areas if you get someone else to do the job. Another option is to add soil to the low areas, and reseed.
You need to look at what your downspouts are doing as well as any water coming in from outside of your yard. Perforated pipe with crushed rock will drain the water out. They also make a fabric sleeve for the perforated pipe whcih you should use.
One important thing to do is to contact the utilities people in your yellow pages that will mark where any underground utilities are buried
THIS CAN SAVE YOUR LIFE or at least a bunch of $$ in repairs.
A good landscape company can probably give you a good estate
It is probably more than you want to try yourself as it will require the use of power equipment whcih while you can rent is a little tricky to use.
You did not mention where you lived or what kind of soil you have?
You could even have a drain pipe that it going thru your yard that is broken!
Wayne
I'd first call the city you live in and ask if they can send out a staff member (probably a city engineer) to take a look at your yard and advise you as to your options. My sister did that and her city's engineer suggested she create a dry streambed to run across the lowest level of her property.
Basically, she and her husband took a tiller and dug out a trench about a foot deep following the lowest level across their property. They spread the dirt from the trench around their house foundation to raise the grade by the house. They then had a company deliver a few tons of crushed rock, and dumped that into the trench. Runoff from the rest of the yard now drains into the streambed, where the rock keeps it from becoming a quagmire. The water gradually percolates down into the soil, so the streambed eventually dries out until the next rainfall. My sister landscaped the streambed with strategic plantings of flowers and ornamental grasses to make it an attractive design element in the yard. And she loves it - her yard isn't squishy anymore, and they don't have to mow in mucky ground, since the wet area is rocked.
HellT
Also, what time do you get up in the morning, and what do you have for lunch...
Every one of the questions had a purpose. Did you notice?
You can do it yourself, its not complicated at all. But its a fair amount of labor.
The following assumes you have a ditch to drain too that is lower than the lake that forms.
If you have no slope you may try this:
2 Dig a big hole. If you hit sandy soil then:3 Line with drainage fabric ( in drainage section of Lowes, keeps dirt from clogging rocks)
4 Get largest rocks you can get delivered (~ 40 dollars a ton). Start with a ton.5 Put rocks in lined hole.
6 Buy a length of schedule 40 PVC from lowes, also get a drainage grate from drainage section that fits the pipe. It comes green and black.7 Put the length of schedule 40 PVC down in the rocks. Make sure it ends just below the surface.
8 Wrap the landscape fabric around the pipe and tie it. ( at this point looks like a garbage bag in ground tied around PVC ).9 Put paper over PVC opening and put grate on ( the paper keeps dirt out of pipe while backfilling)
10 Fill hole with dirt and then tamp it down to just above pipe.11 Take paper out.
The next time it rains you will see if you have enough rocks.
Since I've owned it (10 years), yes.
Can't say as I did. I also don't see how mowing higher is going to magically disappear standing water.
Harry K
Suzie, I don't mean to be rude, especially at a time when things on your property are so annoying, but after 10 years, didn't it ever dawn on you to plant rice, and make a little profit from the land? You could've planted Arborio or Basmati, or some other fancy variety that's all the rage in upscale restaurants.
But SERIOUSLY, folks....the lawnmower height's not going to work miracles, but even if you install drainage, your property is still in a place where something interesting is happening underground. You may need every edge you can get.
It won't magically dissipate (not disappear) standing water. Over a couple of seasons, it will improve the drainage of the yard, which will help SOME. Unless her lawn is growing in 6" of soil on top of a solid layer of rock, a deeper, healthier root system will improve the ground's ability to absorb water. As a bonus, she'll have less weeds, need less fertilizer and less watering in the dry months.
Most lawns are cut too short at certain times of year.
*SOME* being the operative word. Until now (except that I knew better), reading you one would think that just leaving the grass longer would be the fix. It isn't, not for her magnitude of problem.
Banty
A willow tree, by contrast, WILL suck all that water up..
It actually solved ALL of the problem for the people who run my office park. They were shaving the lawn to 1" all season long and rolling it each spring. Two hours of rain and they'd have a pond 3" deep. They stopped their mistakes and the problem is gone. Nothing else was done. There's no way to predict the results of good practices such as I've described, other than to say "they will help, and may solve".
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