I'd appreciate any advice I could get on improving the drainage around my house and putting in a path at the same time. Here's the situation:
We've got a 1/8
acre plot at the foot of a small hill, in a wet climate. The basement has flooded before; we seem to have solved that issue with some under-floor draining for now but are anxious to not make the problem worse.
The house is in the middle of the lot, which runs mostly west to east - there is limited space to the north or south of the house.
The hill is to the west of us, so the property slopes from west to east.
To the south of the house is the driveway (which takes up almost all of the property on that side), and to the southwest is the garage. Eventually I'd like to remove the garage and driveway in favor of a larger garden, but that is far away and may never happen.
The front entrance to the house is on the east (downhill) side but we mostly use the back door off the kitchen to get to the garage (and garden).
The ground
should really slope away from the house in all directions, but it doesn't in the back - it flattens out. This flat section, about 6' away from the house, also forms the
de facto path between the back door and the garage. As a result, it is a muddy mess in fall and spring due to rain and snow melt, respectively. I would like this to be a safe, dry, attractive path, probably with stepping stones. I also would like to divert
water flowing down the hill so less of it flows into our basement. There is nowhere to put the water on the south side of the house, due to the driveway, so the water would have to run to the north of the house. There is an indentation to the north of the house between our house and our neighbor's house that is already fairly damp.
One final factor is that we would like to put in a small back porch in the next 2-3 years, so I want the path to end up flowing into the porch steps.
My initial thoughts were to
1) grade the
land (1" per 1'?) down from the house in the back (note: adding more soil on the house side is not an option since that would get soil too close to the siding)
2) dig a trench (how far from the house?) that slopes (how steeply?) toward the northern indentation
3) fill the trench with gravel (what kind? will gravel work? do I need landscape cloth or a pipe or anything else?)
4) put paving stones on top of the gravel
5) design the path to intersect where we think the porch will go
Will this work? Is there an easier way? Can you put a walkway on top of a drainage ditch, or should they be separate? I hate to do more digging than needed, and I hate to bring in gravel if it's not needed. I don't want to put a
swale in because my understanding is that it will cause a "lens" of water to form downhill of it (i.e., in my basement!) but if someone can convince me that won't be a problem, a swale or terrace or something might be OK.
Thank you!