Browse Forums Landscape & Garden Design 1 Jun 30, 2010 4:40 pm Hi guys, I have been racking my brain for weeks on this one and haven't been able to come up with a good idea. Basically I have a large patch of clay next to my house which is retaining a pool of water against the house for quite some time (up to 2-3 days depending on the amount of rain we get). As you can imagine, I want to try and get rid of this water but am struggling to work out how to get rid of it as I don't really want it pooling anywhere on my property. In the following photos you can see that it is pooling behind the fence, up against the house. I have tried to dig a trench and run poly pipe towards the front of the block but unfortunately the gutter is too high for the water to get over and it eventually just flows back towards the house. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated. Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Re: Ideas to drain water away from house 2Jun 30, 2010 5:08 pm I don't quite understand what is the gutter that's stopping it? Is it under the gate? (that's a side gate, right?) Can you lower the gutter? Feed a stormwater pipe / ag drain under it? Remove some of the clay and replace with sand and compost and plants? Install a rainwater tank? Re: Ideas to drain water away from house 3Jun 30, 2010 5:38 pm englyn I don't quite understand what is the gutter that's stopping it? Is it under the gate? (that's a side gate, right?) Can you lower the gutter? Feed a stormwater pipe / ag drain under it? Remove some of the clay and replace with sand and compost and plants? Install a rainwater tank? It's just a bit of treated pine that was put there to stop the dogs from getting out. There is a piece cut out of it which is where the poly pipe feeds under. This however, does nothing! How much of it would I need to remove and replace? What is the best soil/sand to use? Re: Ideas to drain water away from house 4Jun 30, 2010 9:05 pm Just a few questions to add onto my previous couple... - How much clay soil should I dig out in order to allow enough drainage through the new top soil/sand? I live in regional Victoria so we don't usually get a lot of rain although it doesn't take much to create a nice little pool against the house. - If I dug out say 15 inches or clay and filled with loam, will this fix my problem? The end goal is to have 100ml of crushed rock on either side of the gate so the plan is to just avoid a) water pooling against the house and b) the crushed rock turning into sludge. Thanks all... Adam Re: Ideas to drain water away from house 5Jul 01, 2010 8:37 am Ok so i seem to be talking to myself here but I have had another good idea overnight and think this is a winner. I am lucky enough to have a PVC pipe running directly under the flooded area which comes from two down pipes and ends at an easement in the corner of my yard where it goes into storm water. I am thinking that I can create some sort of french train from out the front, going under the gate and then directing all water into the end of it where I would then tap into the PVC pipe. Is this going to create too much pressure on the pipe? Re: Ideas to drain water away from house 6Jul 01, 2010 10:22 am Adam, sorry if I am being blunt here but it sounds to me like you don't have any idea as to you final land use for this area of your yard. What I mean by this is that you dont seem to have a landscape plan. I recommend that you spend a bit of time evaluating your entire block, draw up your boundaries, house position, get some levels shot and plot your contours etc. Then decide on what features, utilities etc you want / need (rainwater tanks, washing line, aircons, planter boxes, gardens, vege patches, outdoor rooms etc etc). Then put some thought into where best to site it all, and work out solutions for problems such as drainage etc. Then go about contsructing permanent solutions which fit in with your ultimate land use / landscape plan. It may be that you cannot resolve the drainage problem until later as you have paving planned for that area, therefore a temporary solution which eliminates the problem of water against house / stagnant water. Usually involves digging a sump IE drain water away from area to a temporary hole where it can soak away. Sounds like you have an oppurtunity to tap into a stormwater pipe in the area so may be the solution, but plan how you are going to do it to fit in with your plans, so that you are not doing things twice / putting obstacles in your own way for later. No it will not put too much pressure on the pipe as you should build an interface which allows large temporary volumes of water to spill out somewhere suitable. (Theses should be rare events.) Take your time in coming up with your plan or employ someone to help if you don't have the skills, however water against your house is a concern and should be dealt with in the short term, use a temporary solution if neccesary. Good luck and welcome to the dilemmas of owning a house. Re: Ideas to drain water away from house 7Jul 01, 2010 10:49 am Oh right, that thing that looks like a hose in the photos is the poly pipe, which is just sitting on top of the ground? And your gate is higher than the street? And you're going to use the area for trailer parking or something like that, so it's going to be gravel eventually. But at the moment, the ground level at the gate is slightly higher than behind it, so the water's not going through the pipe. For now, I'd lose the poly pipe and just dig a trench deep enough so that water flows out to the front easily. Don't bother with loam if you're going to gravel it, but a bit of compacted sand later may give you a better base for the gravel. Make sure any drain you install is drivable on if you intend to park there. And make sure you get the permanent solution in before the clay dries out in summer! For your connecting to stormwater idea, how are you thinking of collecting the water? Re: Ideas to drain water away from house 8Jul 01, 2010 11:48 am Thanks for your replies gents. The area that I am having drainage problems with will eventually be a second driveway and trailer storage area and will most likely be covered in around 100mm of crushed rock so there is no real landscape plan needed. I do however, need to get rid of the water. What I think I will do (and please let me know if this is a bad idea) is dig a french drain trench from the front side of the gate, underneath the gate and ending in a small pit. At the bottom of this pit I will have a poly pipe which will incline down and connect into a Tee connector in the storm water pipe. The french drain will contain all the usual permeable materials such as a base of sand and a fill of gravel. I will have the pipe angled away from the house so that the pit will be closer to the fence than the house. I will then build up the clay on the house side and slope down towards the pit. How does this all sound? Re: Ideas to drain water away from house 10Jul 02, 2010 11:15 am Ah righto, now see what you mean. I would grade the area on a 1.5-2 % fall away from the house, to push the water away toward the fence. Against your house though you dont want dirt higher than say 150mm below the damp course, maybe a bit higher if gravel, so may involve cutting rather than filling against house. Then can gravel the area, I would probably leave the clay underneath the gravel as a hard surface to create the runoff. At the low side of the slope install either a french drain or I would use an ag pipe in a gravel envelope, all covered with geofabric and then backfilled over with sand and then maybe weedmat then continue your pebbles. Run the ag pipe into your stormwater drainpipe. If the pipe is overloaded the water should just sit in the drain until the drainage catches up. Depends on how your levels work out as to what you can do ie level of the drainpipe vs ground levels. In the short term just continue that trench you have dug underneath the timber kerbing to let the water out to the road. cover with mesh if dogs are a problem. Does that make sense ? Re: Ideas to drain water away from house 12Jul 03, 2010 5:53 pm Hey fellas, Got out there and installed a tee connector into my storm water pipe and then connected another piece of pipe on a slight slope. I have then put a tank strainer on the end of the pipe which is sitting in a square pit. Everything looks fine but something really weird is happening. I have filled the pit full of water expecting the water to flow through the pipe and into the storm water pipe however the water is just sitting stagnant in the bottom of the pit. I have checked the angle of the pipe and everything looks to be fine. I have no idea why the water won't flow.... Any ideas? Re: Ideas to drain water away from house 13Jul 03, 2010 10:16 pm Ok so I'm thinking I have an air lock present somewhere in the pipe. As far as I know, I have two options. 1) Install some sort of valve or air release and hope that will start the water flow. 2) Remove the horizontal section of pipe and point the tee connector directly upwards and position the pit above. With the pipe being completely vertical, I'm confident that the water should have enough gravitational pull to make it's way down the pipe. Hoping someone can let me know before tomorrow what their thoughts are on what method to use. Cheers... Re: Ideas to drain water away from house 15Jul 05, 2010 5:43 pm keen Do you still have access to where you T ed in ? Pull off the connection and see if the main pipe is blocked - stick your hose in it. Did you use 90mm for your plumbing ? I do... I ended up cutting the horizontal pipe and lifting it so it points directly up and down. Water seems to drain fluently now. Yes, I used 90mm. Re: Ideas to drain water away from house 17Jul 11, 2010 1:38 am Kio I've got a similar problem as well, do you mind to post some "after" pics? No worries... I'll take some later today. Only thing is, is that I've covered up the tee with dirt so all you'll see is the drain. I can go through exactly what I did though and what I still need to do to finish off the job. Re: Ideas to drain water away from house 18Jul 14, 2010 10:43 pm Hi You will probably find that the stormwater pipe that is installed around your house has no fall. This is a common problem when 90mm stormwater pipe is installed by some plumbers. The 90mm stormwater pipe is prone to being squashed after installation and sometimes can be completely flat especially in clay areas. The only way to test to see if it is not completely flat is place a hose down the pipe and see how fast the water comes out at the kerb. Regards Shane AS4654.2-2012 External Membranes it is "Informative" but if you get water ingress your insurance assessor will go to this straight away and if not achieved, they will deny… 9 1920 Grab a hose, insert it at the top of the inlet/down pipe and turn the water on and see where the water is escaping from. Then you'll know. 3 8486 I've got a challenge here. Background is the builder has cut too deep for the slab and the slab is now below the very substantial retaining wall. It's failed occupancy… 0 18402 |