My question is similar but we are not below the
water table.
City regulations say you have to handle all your
runoff on your
land. Which is the first helpful thing I've heard yet. Yes, we have a good City council!
But my housemate says the contractors who did another job here said we need to have a big box stuck in the back
yard with holes in it, and water will gradually diffuse out of it into the soil. 5' cube (about 2 m cube).
In some ways, that's great. It would mean water retention in the soil--even more than the
wood chips have helped to effect. (We had spontaneous
mushrooms this year first time ever!!!)
BUT--cautions!
--do we need people digging up the back yard? with heavy equipment?
--will they back over the nut and
fruit saplings, the way the other construction crew that PROMISED not to do but did anyway, to TWO different trees--and that was just with a ladder, not a piece of gas-powered machinery?
--what does the plastic leach into the soil? dyes in the plastic?
--isn't this a very petroleum-heavy solution?
--it's what's on the market--so for me the trust has been broken. You now need to prove innocence if you're trying to
sell me something.
I had the good sense not to play my hand too soon, my housemate gets nervous if I propose solutions too soon, as do most people. Better to take time to understand all the concerns. and maybe get mine understood too.
My solution, though, is I will personally HAND DIG a pit back there (as I did a few years ago--it's subsequently filled in with sediment and wood chips) about 125 cubic feet deep, put the fill somewhere, and backfill with wood chips. And we can run the buried pipe from our drainpipe over the hump and into the part of the land that drains toward the
berm that I put in a few years back along the back
fence.
to illustrate:
HOUSE| --pipe--/up hump then down other side of hump\______/---berm
\/
5 foot cube ditch filled with wood chips
I hope that illustration comes through.
We get about 40 inches (1 meter) rain per year, officially ( though recently it's been in big bursts with long dry periods between.)
Is this OK? it's far enough away from the house (10' is what I recall as danger zone, from someone with more
experience and wisdom on this site). it can't be worse than letting it drain into the basement when it rains, which it has done a bit before, though I'm not aware of it ever coming in the back wall. It's wood chips, so reasonably natural. The pit will need to be re-dug in five years probably, but that's not prohibitive. It's not going to collapse--I've made other ones not as big but they haven't sunk noticeably at all and have done something to moderate the floody rainstorms.
Also, our soil is much more infiltratable than it used to be when I moved in here, so I think that it will soak in fine.
In fact, I think it would work fine just to run the pipe over without digging an extra hole, but I like the idea of a bit more soaking in, less time for the mosquitoes to find it or for neighbors to be worried.
Sorry if this is a redundant topic, but I didn't find anything on a search of "drainage house yard"
It seems cheaper than a French drain or a big plastic box and back hoes.
Am I missing anything?
Supposing you had to convince people cautious about unusual fixes for problems, what might you say to present this?
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