I have this spot along my fence line that has turned to soggy mud. I've gotten 3 quotes but they all suggest different things. Hoping for a sanity check here.
The yard is intended to be sloped towards the front (street). Back half is roughly 2% grade, soggy area around 0.5%, then front good again.
The 3 estimators suggested..
1. French drain in soggy area
2. French drain in soggy area with 4 surface drains feeding into it
3. No French drain, catch basins at downspouts
All options piping the water to the front where there's a storm drain.
Are surface drains needed or recommended for systems like this? I feel they would allow dirt in and require maintenance more frequent than without?
I understand that #3 would reduce the water coming to this area, but feel it doesn't actually address the issue? Just require a heavier rain before it's back to mud.
Hope I provided enough info, thanks for any feedback.
by qoooou
3 Comments
French drain with two catch basins sounds ideal, four seems excessive especially given that it’s already in a graded swale.
Is it only like this after a rain, or year round?
Piping the downspouts to the front should be the lowest cost and least invasive. If it’s only surface water you’re dealing with then it should be enough. You can also put a catch basin or two in the yard if there’s a low spot, but if you have decent grade it may not be necessary.
French drain with a **separate pipe** for the downspouts would be needed if you *also* have subsurface water, a.k.a. high water table. It’s much more work to bring in all the rock and requires a bigger trench. More to go wrong with that too, so I’d skip it if I didn’t need it.
Putting in a French drain and letting all the water from the downspouts run into it seems like the biggest waste of $. It might work, but you already have all the water from the roof in pipes, why the hell would you dump it all on the ground, only to catch it again in a French drain?!?
Btw, find someone who will use SDR pipe, double wall corrugated, or even HDPE. Just don’t use the single wall stuff, it fails quick.
French drain is overkill, this area is wet and soggy because your downspouts dump right onto the lawn. Pipe the downspouts to the street, add a catch basin in the low area for any other water.