Question
rain pooling
Hello.Our home sits on the lowest part of the property. When it rains very hard in a short period of time,the water flows down from the backyard,under the fence and puddles up on the side of the house. When it reaches over the concrete slab outside the side door,it poors right in under the door into our house. We have dug trenches around the concrete slab,tried to block the water from coming from the back yard.It has helped a little,but the water will still come inside.The water does drain quickly when the rain stops. The side yard slopes uphill and back down into the ditch.We have thought about putting in a french drain or a drywell,but we would have to dig so deep to get a downhill grade into the ditch.I am also not sure they could drain the water away fast enough.There are also many large trees in the side yard with large roots.Do you have any ideas to solve this problem?Thank you.
AnswerHello Amy, sorry to hear that you're having problems with the drainage in your garden.
Ok, clearly the french drain system would be the obvious solution but I understand the problem with the slope etc. So, I would suggest installing a simple soak away. A soak away is simply a large hole, dug under the level of the area where the rain arrives at your house. This should then be lined with a permeable nylon fabric. This should then be filled with large round gravel (stones) and capped with more nylon fabric. This will allow the water to drain freely into the hole and soak away naturally.
This can then be covered with another layer of gravel and even planted with plants such as iris- to hide the sight of the gravel.
Let me know if this suits you otherwise I will re-think it.
Thanks for any bonus points in advance.
Kind regards
Jonathan www.ecologicagardens.com
