Browse Forums Landscape & Garden Design 1 Nov 04, 2011 8:18 pm Hi all, Our house has a flooding problem in the backyard, and we're unsure of how to deal with it. Whenever it rains heavily, part of the yard starts filling up with water (a few centermeters deep), and takes days to dry up. We've had someone look at it in the past, and they said our yard is lower than the neighbours yards, so when it rains the water naturally pools on our side. We've been hassling our real estate agent (the house is currently rented out) to get some quotes to get the drainage fixed, but so far he only managed to came up with a couple of quotes to concrete yard. We've told him that's not what we want to do, as we're worried concreting the yard won't solve anything, and we may end up having to dig up the concrete later on to fix the problem. I've started doing some research, and read in various forums that "French drains" or "ag drain" could be a solution. I'm wondering if anyone's had any experience with those, and what type of business I should contact to get these installed? The house is in Western Sydney, but we're based in another state, so DIY isn't really an option. I've tried searching the yellowpages (garden drainage, plumbing...etc), but can't seem to find any businesses that does this type of work. Any advice/suggestions would be much appreciated, KL Re: Backyard drainage problem 3Nov 04, 2011 9:14 pm Have a look at the threads on soakwells The Harder You Try - the Luckier You Get ! Web site http://www.anewhouse.com.au Informative, Amusing, and Opinionated Blog - Over 600 posts on all aspects of building a new house. Re: Backyard drainage problem 4Nov 05, 2011 2:05 am I'll share my little drainage/landscaping story since I had the exact problem and did a 6 months research and planning how to solve it since when my wife and I bought our first home at Oct 2009. Whenever it rains my backyard will turn into this huge waterpit collecting water and runoffs from the back and the LH side neighbour. We had one surface drain in the middle of the backyard but it didn't do the job. The worst part was everyone's house on the street had CLAY based yards so the water will just stays there for days before it gets dry. We've also been told by the council if the water is coming from a natural fall there isn't much we could do other than to improve our drainage at our expense. Well, that was a good excuse for us to build a nice retaining wall instead of the ugly uneven looking rocks that we had. Here's a list of things that we did to rectify the problem with a landscaping company: 1. Build a wall filled with drainage gravel with geofabric infront of the boulder rocks with ag pipes down the bottom. 2. Install more surface drains ( 3@ the backyard and 2@the front) 3. Dug out 300mm of clay and moved some to the front to make a nice level front yard as I had a slop front yard and replace it with sandy soil. The drainage plan was to collect water from the retaining wall->surface drains->stormwater downpipes on the house which all leads to the front out to the street then into the council's sewage drain. To give you an idea on how bad it was, I've put a bucket out there to indicate how much rainfall it had. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i25noqmqYTI Retaining wall Before & After Frontyard Before & After Luckily the whole project was finished just before the rain that we had in QLD at the beginning of this yr, tbh we did not see any water puddle forming at all during that time, money well spent if you ask me since we're planning to stay in this house for the next 20 yrs. Re: Backyard drainage problem 6Nov 05, 2011 4:59 pm Casa2 - The area the house is in is very clay-ey, so the water is just pooling at the lowest point (middle of our yard). Bashworth - Thanks for the pointer. I've read through the soakwells thread, but it seems applicable mainly to sandy areas where the water can slowly dissipate once collected in the soakwell? How will they work in a clay-ey area? Wouldn't the water just get collected there and never go away/don't drain away fast enough? Kio - That's amazing what you did with your yard. It looks terrific. How much did it cost all up? Re: Backyard drainage problem 7Nov 05, 2011 5:00 pm I came across this last night: http://www.abc.net.au/gardening/stories/s908557.htm, and think maybe this could be a cost-effective solution that would work. The area that's flooding is rectangular and around 15m x 5m. There is a storm water drain in the south-east corner. I'm think of digging trenches (in gray) like shown, and then run some AG pipes sloping down towards the drain. Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ 1. Do you think this will work? 2. How much do you think it will cost if I get a plumber in to do the job? (Been burnt in the past by tradies over quoting, so just wanted to set my expectations right). Thanks again Re: Backyard drainage problem 8Nov 07, 2011 4:55 pm klai Casa2 - Bashworth - Thanks for the pointer. I've read through the soakwells thread, but it seems applicable mainly to sandy areas where the water can slowly dissipate once collected in the soakwell? How will they work in a clay-ey area? Wouldn't the water just get collected there and never go away/don't drain away fast enough? Although soakwells work best with sandy soil, the water will soak into the clay slowly and the well provides some storage volume underground rather than having water standing on the surface. The ag pipe solution however should work and would probably be cheaper. The Harder You Try - the Luckier You Get ! Web site http://www.anewhouse.com.au Informative, Amusing, and Opinionated Blog - Over 600 posts on all aspects of building a new house. Re: Backyard drainage problem 9Nov 07, 2011 5:52 pm we laid ag pipe at the back of our house, just where the pergola ends. When it rained, we found the water was flooding from the back fence, down to the end of the concrete floor of the pergola. It was joined up to the silt pit. On the other side of the house we used an open drain that connected directly to the storm water. We have not had any flooding since. 2 5860 DIY, Home Maintenance & Repair That laser level looks lovely! We bought one for less than a quarter of that price off eBay. It worked really well for us and it's still going now, five years later. After… 1 16717 It's possible but a soak well is usually much larger. Your 'soak well' only holds 424 litres when full. What is your soil type? Soak wells need sandy soils. 10 9017 |