Help! Need advice on controlling water runoff

[Alex Franke]

Hi all,

My downhill neighbor's lawn got flooded during this last storm and they came to me and complained. Their property is downhill or ours, and I'd have to go uphill to get water to the street in front of the house as well.

The previous owners of my home had installed a drain down the middle of our back yard that collects a lot of the water and drains it directly out to the neighbor's property. The back yard slopes diagonally toward our house and the neighbor's, and the grade away from our house makes a little valley where the drain is currently installed. I have to believe this is causing a good deal of the problem, and it just doesn't seem right to me anyway. I want to be a good neighbor and try to get it fixed, but the low points of our property happen to be direectly bordering their property.

One thought is that I could take the drain out and just let the water run downhill naturally -- I can't see how the natural countour of the land can be my responsibility, but I don't know -- maybe it is!

Another though would be to drain it out to a low point at the front of our house, but because of the hill up to the road, it'll just go right back into the nieghbor's front yard.

Finally, we thought maybe we could help pay for the cost of (and connect our drain to) a drain across the neighbor's yard and into a culvert at the opposite side. But then what happens if they sell and the new owners decide they don't want us connecting through?

Any ideas or advice would be MUCH appreciated! I'm getting worried about this!

[Russianwolf]

can you get some pictures so we have a better idea of the terrain?

My first thought is that it sucks to be them, but there isn't anything you can do to change the terrain. (drain = flooded yard, no drain = slightly less flooding, but still flooded yard).

you'll likely need to get a landscaper to come out and see what if anything can be done to channel the water.

[bmyers]

(HOA is a four letter word)

Yeah pictures would help. Water is not an easy element to champion, look at the Grand Canyon and its evident that water has some real power!

Again pics would help but I've never let lack of information stop me from having an opinion so

Take a look at how your gutters are arranged and where they drain. If they are leading to the back yard it may be an option to have your roof run-off go somewhere else.

Do your best to work with your neighbor and stay out of the court house. Even if in the end nothing can be done to remedy the problem, at least your efforts will be recognized by them and instead of dirty looks from across the yard, you be able to comiserate with them on rainy days over a beer.


Bill

[Copper]

Another alternative if all else fails is to make a rain garden. They're growing in popularity and help to hold water after a storm and funnel it into the ground.

http://www.raingardens.org/Index.php
http://clean-water.uwex.edu/pubs/home.htm#rain

[Alex Franke]

Here's a topo map. (GIS explorers are very cool!)



I'm going to go outside and grab some photos in a few minutes. (Home sick today snd still in my PJ's!)

[mschrank]

Your final solution is probably the best...and what the original developer of the property probably should have done in the first place.

If subsequent nieghbors don't want your drain water running through a pipe under their yard (if they even knew it did), simply unhook it and let it drain onto their yard.

btw-NICE job on the map! I'm make my living as a GIS geek, so that map caught my eye. How did you make it?

[Alex Franke]

Thanks for all the help so far! Here are the photos I promised.

Looking up from the neighbor's yard. Our french drain empties straight into their property where the mulch is between the large tree the left and the little tree in the middle.


Looking down into the neighbor's yard. These are the same two trees as in the photo above. Our French drain runs between them.


Looking across our back yard, right along the "valley" created by the natural slope of the land and the grading away from the house.

[Ken Massingale]

How about a low berm like little hill running on the property line between the houses? About a foot tall will divert a lot of water since there seems to be a slope toward the front.

[cgallery]

I think your neighboars need a French drain of their own.

I'd call the previous owner and say something like, "Hey, the neighbors are complaining that the drain is filling their back yard, and I don't know what to do. Do I really need that thing?"

They may tell you that the neighbors backed out of having the same thing done at the same time. Who knows.

[LCHIEN]

Your final solution is probably the best...and what the original developer of the property probably should have done in the first place.

If subsequent nieghbors don't want your drain water running through a pipe under their yard (if they even knew it did), simply unhook it and let it drain onto their yard.

btw-NICE job on the map! I'm make my living as a GIS geek, so that map caught my eye. How did you make it?

Ha, Ha, Mike is so right on all (3) points.

[Black wallnut]

To protect yourself from future neighbors. Suggest your final option along with them giving you an easement for the drain pipe. Contacting the previous owners will do little unless they have something in writing. If it is not in writing it did not happen!

[Alex Franke]

Hey thanks for all the great input here. I talked to the neighbors and they seem very willing to work together on this. I'll have to check into how we go about getting an easement.

I had a couple of companies come out and take a look at it -- it's amazing the difference in price -- and the difference in their recommendation. Both of them seemed to think it was more thri problem than mine except for the water that we're channeling, which we should probably send somewhere else. They suggested either under the neighbor's yard or to the front of the house (but not up the hill) so it will flow across the neighbor's front yard.

btw-NICE job on the map! I'm make my living as a GIS geek, so that map caught my eye. How did you make it?

My county has an interactive explorer online. You can show/hide layers, zoom, pan, see data, etc. Very cool indeed. =)

[steve-norrell]

1. The current issue of Family Handyman (April 2007) has an article on yard drainage and the use of rain gardens and swales.

We recently had some landscaping done, including the installation of swales and one 'dry well'. They work pretty well and may be helpful in your circumstance.

2. The topo map (if I am reading the topo lines correctly), looks like the low spot in the "culvert" is in the second neighbor's yard and that the elevation is rising toward the south (bottom of map). Unless there is a drain under the road easement, could there be a danger of the "culvert" becoming a lake?

Good luck, Steve

[Alex Franke]

Thanks for the tip, Steve. I'll check out that issue tomight.

The culvert actually is where/how the water passes under the road. There's a little stream that runs south to north across the left hand side of the map, and through the culvert under the road. I think it is in the second neighbor's yard, but I'm pretty sure there's a drainage easement across this part of their property.

[Garasaki]

If it were my yard, I would try to use the rain garden(s) and swales approach.

Call me a tree hugger (I don't mind that tag), but people underestimate the enviromental impacts of rain runoff. Nature had developed an effective system of recycling the water that fell from the sky. Humans have totally decimated the process, by adding impentrable surface over the urban landscape. Even your lawn is an arguably impentrable surface (lawngrass is surprisingly ineffective at soaking up and slowing down rainwater).

Anywho's, a well designed rain garden will slow down, and filter, your runoff. It should help your neighbors out, and will help the enviroment. Might even look nice!