Or, more likely, there's been additional building around that has added other runoff load...then again, averages are just that--nothing says there aren't the occasional rare or semi-rare events...
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I don't follow this...you mean the drain opening is vertical of some height by 6' long and the paving cut off 4" along the bottom by raising the level? What sort of percentage obstruction is that on the height dimension? If it's sizable fraction, then I'd guess it's possible it does have add a fair obstruction. If not, depending on the grade, it's still possible it's lowered the flow rate by taking away slope, particularly if there happens to be any rise there at the entrance.
W/o pictures/drawings and elevations it's virtually impossible to say anything at all definitive, but there's where I'd start. Plus, talk w/ the city engineers on overall flood control and what else has gone on in the area that could be exacerbating the runoff issues your having--it's possible if there was another development that some of the responsibility might be devolved back to them to control their runoff.
Let me clarify. The drain pipe only drains the road in front of the townhouses and the adjacent parking places (which are perpendicular to the road) , and I guess the sidewalks next to the parking places that parallel to the road, and the sidewalks leading to people's door where they have enough slope for some of the the water to reach the parking places and not go off to the side into their grass. (Water that goes into the grass will seep through the soil and eventually end up in the stream but wouldn't go through this drain. A few people with end-of-group houses have pretty big yards, but, reviewing them all in my head, nothing has really changed there. A big willow tree was blown over and then died, but I don't think increased run-off onto the road.)
The n'hood is on a mild hill and has two entrances. At the top, the ground slopes the other way just as our n'hood starts.
At the lower entrance, I think there is another drain and pipe that channels all the water from outside the n'hood straight to the same stream, but I see no current from their to my problem area.
Well it's sort of a T, but let me give more details. The pipe is 50, maybe 60 feet long, but in a light rain, it's another 30 or 40 feet from the end of the pipe through a channel across the secondary stream bed to the actual stream. (that's the channel I widened and deepened)
That night, through the light of some lightning, I saw that though the stream had risen some, it was still within its primary bed and hadn't risen enough to cover the channel from the drainpipe.
The pipe doesn't flow directly into the stream until the stream rises another couple feet and widens (at that point widens 30 or 40 more feet), and only after it rises 2 more feet after that is all of the end of the pipe submerged. That's only a couple times a year, and we haven't' had any parking lot flooding at times like that,
The stream is, at different spots, 20 to 10 feet wide and 6 to 12 inches deep when there's been no rain, but can rise to 150 to 80 feet wide and
12 feet deep with a roar loud enough to wake me up when it rains enough.
The stream is the best part about this house and the reason I bought it. There are a lot of streams in Baltimore, but most of the others of any size are surrounded by parks and the closest one can live is across the street from the park.
Although I don't think my neighbor's appreciate it. A couple dump their grass cuttings there, which I don't object to, but I think no one but me goes down there just to look at the steam or the island in the middle, which one can walk to without getting wet when the stream level is low. .
OTOH a lot of kids used to go this way until a big tree fell down, blocking the only good route to the other side of the stream. I didn't mind the kids except for the one or two who would ride their bicycle down the grassy area between my fence and my n'bors. Even when the ground was wet, and they really ruined the grass and made ruts in the dirt. (And why did they need a shortcut when they had bicycles?) It's been 1.3 summers since the tree fell down and the grass is almost back to normal.
I don't know. That pipe was entirely on our property.
I've been looking for a bright flashlight and a warm day to walk in the water, and I'm going to try to look up the drainpipe from the far end. According to the plat, for what that's worth, it's straight.
But I don' tthink there can be significant deposits. 99% of the water it gets is rain water, almost like distilled. It also picks up whatever oil has dripped on the road and though none is visible, I'm sure there is some, but that is washed away during the firsr 10 minutes of rain. I've never seen an oil sheen on the water running down the parking lot or about to enter the drain.
I don't know if he used a camera. I'm sure he had one. I wonder if the old president will talk to the new one, now that the old one has been deposed. But the paid bill has to be in our records and they could find him from that.
By looking I was hoping to see if the drain had collapsed, but I won't be able to see all the way up, not with a flashlight.
But what about the 14" whirlpool? Could it have that if the pipe had collapsed?
When it rains heavily in the day, I'll be able to see how it looks coming out of the pipe, not just what it looks like going in.
No, he ran his hose (6 or 8 inches) all the way down to the far end of the pipe/
They used something like this for the sewer drain. After 25 years, it has a "fat log", from too many people either draining their fat down the sink, or maybe just from washing greasy dishes in the sink or dishwasher. I think everyone does that. Does that contribute to fat-clogged drains, or is the accompanying soap or detergent enough to keep the fat suspended until it reaches the city sewer treatment center, or at least is off our property?
It used its reverse jet to, iiuc, propel the hose forward. Jetted hot water. All on our property and we called the plumber to do it.
I guess that implies we think we own the sewer drains too. Maybe that's different from owning the streets? For the past several years we've had a really incompetent property manager, and before that we had no problems with fat logs afaik. I'm sure you'll say we should check on this, They're talking about changing the management company, and I encouraged them to do that.
responsibility, why is the HOA paying contractors?
how they are going to fix it, or are they doing just what you tell them?
the work you're doing. That's a large complex.
The world needs more folks like you pitching in to help folks. Just be sure you have the OK of the HOA or some evil busybody could create problems for you -- even if you're doing good work and doing everyone a favor. Nastiness abounds in the HOA world.
Was there a change in the grading on the inflow side? New parking lot, development, site work? It's my guess that something has changed and your system is simply overwhelmed. possibly a series of retention basin to modulate flow is needed. A civil engineer will probably have to be consulted. Maybe the municipality will have a look at it.
In this case, probably not. I'm sure there are very few guys in town with a vacuum as big as a garbage truck. More with an excavator but still not many.
OTOH, she signed a gardening contract for 3 years instead of the normal one year, and a neighbor says they mowed her lawn in exchange for that. Same neighbor says the people who plow our streets for snow also shovel her sidewalk. She could be paying them separately, of course, and the neighbor, a woman, died suddenly from pancreatic cancer (she died within a month.)
And the HOA pres signed a contract to tow cars illegally parked which let the two company just drive around whenever they wanted to (which was at dawn) and if she didn't get a kickback for that, she was stupid.
No, no more building. No room to build anything else.
Yes. that's it.
Post delayed while I measured the cuirrent opening.
Since I first posted, I looked and it's 3 or 4 inches of the original 7 or 8. I showed it to my next door neighbor and he thought that miht be it too. I have to talk to the other two people affected by this and then to the HOA. Actually 3 other people because the next-door neighbor sold his house yesterday. The new owners havent' showed up yet. (I hate to start him off with this.)
We have to cut out the last two layers of road, going out maybe 5 inches from the drain, and then do something so what's uncovered won't crumble.
Really the guy who did the last paving job should do this for free, since he should have known better than to obstruct the drain.
No.
No. This drains a very limited area. It slopes the other way 300 or
400 feet up the hill. I haven't checked the other n'hood that backs against our back, but I can see how much water is running down the road. It's no more than it used to be.
99% sure it's the obstructed drain.
Most of the nastiness we got rid of when they forced the President for Life out. Or course power may create new nastiness. I already know that my style grates on the new president.
Any suggestions: Grate? How to keep it from crumbling?
Not a new lot but repaving the old one, once completely and once near the drain that leads to the stream. I think you figured it out (although I did too before I read this post.)
I was wrong about the pipe from the street drain to the stream bed. It's 120 feet, not 60 or 70, but the next step is to get rid of the obstruction at the street drain from the increased height of the road.
I think the paving companies should have see this coming, and that includes the original paving company. They knew it would have to be repaved every 10 or 20 years at least, plus the property management company. Aren't they supposed to know and advise about stuff like this?
Well, that's 50% in height which is a 50% reduction in area so unless there was at least twice the excess capacity needed to begin with you'd seem to be well short.
Chipping out some shouldn't be too big a deal, however. As you said, I'd expect the guy who screwed it up to fix it gratis...
I started another thread with calculations. I think at the beginning the drain opening had 50% more capacity than the pipe, but since it's about 50% smaller now, instead of 1.50 it is 0.75 x the pipe. That is, it is 25% under the capacity of the pipe.
That might not seem like much but it never flooded before the second repaving. I guess they knew exactly how big the pipe should be, but the builders did't leave a note about not obstructing the drain.
I guess the pavers are supposed to know this.
Interestingly, each house that fronts on the street or parking areas has a 4?" corrugated black plastic pipe that comes from the front downspout, and they have worried about not obstructing them!! And they succeeded.
Yeah, that much obstruction to the opening is certainly the main problem. But in addition, that restricted flow probably allowed debris to accumulate close to the outlet of the pipe. So you had undesirable feedback: the restricted inlet allowed the outlet to become restricted, which reduced the flow further and resulted in even lower flow rate at the inlet.
The outlet's been fixed, but the debris is likely to build up again until the inlet is fixed.
And yes, there's plenty of evidence that stronger storms are becoming more common ...
No, not really, but maybe I can explain it better.
It's like most rain sewer openings along the curbs of most streets. It has a flat cement part (which I called the lid) level with the adjacent grass on 3 sides and is 6' long paralleling the street and adjacent to the street on one side (and about 3 feet wide perpendicular to the street).
Underneath the lid is a "room" 5 or 6 feet high (x 3' wide x 6' long), but the only part of the room that peeks out of the ground is the part where the curb would be, except the opening of this box replaces the curb.
Sorry, this is probably a proportional font. Sometimes clicking on reply will make the font equal width'
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