Regrading backyard or French Drain?
Hello, We have been in our house in NJ for four years now. This past winter we got blasted with a lot of snow and then rain. Afterward the back right corner of my backyard was flooded in a triangle about 32' x 64'. I used a pump and pumped the water to the street. At first, I attributed it to the high water table with the snow and rain. Its been dry since (2/3 months). However, we just got another heavy rain yesterday and its totally flooded again. Should I regrade the yard or install a french drain or be happy that its draining to the corner of my yard not to my foundation? My Yard butts up to 2 neighboring yards and I think Im getting their run off too. Any solutions Im not thinking of besides stocking it with fish and goin fishing? It totally covered my newly installed horseshoe pit too. The least expensive solution would be a drain system. But before you do that, figure out where you can drain the water TO! Dumping it on a neighbor's yard isn't a solution. It needs to get to a storm drain, a street gutter, or something similar. Regrading the back yard would probably involve installing a retaining wall, and that would need a drain system at it's base in order to keep it from getting washed down the hill. Thank you for your response. Thats one of the problems I am facing. From the street to the flooding is about 144' so it would be quite an undertaking to build the drain system to keep moving water downhill. Funn tho, this didnt happen the first 3 years we were here until this snowfall this past winter... Any solutions Im not thinking of besides stocking it with fish and goin fishing? I would go fishing somewhere . There is not enough info to understand your terrain, soil type, and the amount of water at issue. But since you asked for ideas, a seepage drain system can work well for certain site conditions experiencing drainage problems. Like Lefty said, the first step is thinking where you can drain the unwanted water. It’s either going to naturally percolate through your substrate (slowest), moved to a drain (usually the fastest), or across a larger area that speeds-up the natural process of percolating through substrate (sometimes a flexible perforated plastic pipe drain is designed to do both so that it is seeping water across your property while also emptying the excess into a drain; I've had to modify the end cap by cutting out a half-round section {or it could be drilled} so that some water is always allowed to seep through the pipe, and under heavy rain conditions, it pours through the open portion of the end cap). Sandy soil is a better application for this type drain system as it takes along time to percolate through clay (a/k/a hard pan). Another consideration is the height of your water table when this problem occurs as an underground seepage pipe will do little good if below the top of the water table. Install a sock that is made for this pipe to minimize sediment build-up inside the pipe over time. Should I regrade the yard or install a french drain or be happy that its draining to the corner of my yard not to my foundation? Since your situation was triggered by presumably unusual weather conditions, you may want to observe for awhile to see if this is going to be a persistent problem or rarely encountered. Re-grading is probably not the best solution as the dispersed water will seek another low area as the water holding capacity of soil is tiny compared to the volume of water at issue. In my area, it’s not lawful to grade a site so that storm water run-off is dumped onto an adjoining parcel of land. It seems like the high water table is suggesting the macro drainage system for your community is overloaded, and this condition may remedy itself within a few days assuming the rain stops. While I don’t know your local conditions, here in FL, our water districts generally prefer use of perforated pipe drains since moving the water to storm drains or swales result in billions of gallons of water being wasted as it is eventually released into the ocean, as well as damaging our estuaries as it goes to sea. By allowing it to seep into the ground, it recharges our aquifers which supplies much of our drinking water. During our wet season (mid-June to mid-Sept.) our water table gets quite high, and a few low areas on my property will store water for several days and sometimes for a few weeks. I just mow around these areas, and don’t worry about them. However, I’m not in an urban environment so our situations may be far different. Here are some links that may be helpful: install drainage Seepage Drainage Surface Water Drainage and Slope Basics
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