You need someone on-site who knows your local regs. If your neighbors' drainage "solution" helped cause what you're showing here, they may well be required to fix their part of it by the local building/planning office.Moving forward, though, you *really* need someone who understands your local soils who can help you improve your situation.

Is that a road that goes between you and the neighbors house in the back? If so, there must be some drainage along the road.

That is township open space where they have a walking bike path. no car drive on it.
The water has gone down alittle seen my last post but now is ice. The dog and kids love it but I not real thrilled this happens when we get rain. We live in a twin so not sure what the best solution would be. the neighbors are very nice that live behind us so im sure they had no idea it could make our back yard worse really. Who would be best to call a Landscaper or who??Here is atoday photo of it..
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If the situation is created by your neighbours it probably is not your problem to fix, but theirs. Do they know about the effect on you? They should. And is there an underground stormwater system they should be connected to? Then they better get on with it. In our city it would not be legal to drain your property either onto public or other private property, so in your position I would begin by going to the city or township with these photos (or maybe HOA if you are in one?). You need to understand the chain of responsibility because this could get worse if the water starts to seep into your house, causes the falling of that tree in a windstorm, or what have you. Wanting to carry the costs yourself now is all very well, but if it starts to climb into the tens of thousands due to you trying to compensate without dealing with the source of the problem, then the fault becomes partly yours.

Given that the water being there is a mistake and not deliberate (as it would be in a swale or swampy area), this is not a landscape design question but something that should be taken to a civil engineer.

Sorry I don't understand "twin" but if that means duplex, then I would think that what you do has to be agreed upon with your co-owners.

KarinL

Well if you look at the first photo I posted the neighbors drain water comes out at about where the top of our shed roof line is but more to the right of the shed. The project was done by a Landscaper as they put in new trees and a stone walkway and this drain at the same time. This was about two years ago now. We always had a problem with it being wet back there but not this bad. I never put thought about their drain till this year as I forgot all about that project. I just wondered why this water issue is so bad now.. So that being said who should I call to look at this and could this be the drain making this worse really?? In the 1st photo I posted I see water laying on the walking path. I am assuming its came from their drain in their backyard. Could water travel this far down to our yard?? So a call to the township or Lanscaper or Civil eng??? I hate to cause any problems with neighbors but really want to figurer out what is really the cause of this water issue first....

I'm not sure if I understand your description.

If the neighbors are on a hill, then their property always did drain into yours. If they landscaped and created berms or raised beds channelized and collected overland flow so that it now entered your property in a larger more concentrated torrent then that is an issue.

If the water gets higher will it drain out the bottom corner of your property and downhill?

It's difficult to tell from the photos, but in the first one your back yard looks as though it sits higher than the area behind your fence. If there is a drop in elevation from the wet area in your yard to the property on the other side of your fence, I would doubt your problem is caused by the neighbor.

The water may be there due to compaction and no slope to your back yard but if you feel it's caused by the other homeowner, do as karini suggested and start with the city/township.

The township may say it doesn't get involved in problems between neighbours so I would not tell them that you think it is the neighbours as Annz is right and it may not be; rather call and ask them if they can come out and assess the source of the problem as it may even have something to do with the public path behind you.

Of course the risk is that they may identify it as your problem (Annz has a good point about the topography) and also prescribe a solution that is expensive and difficult, and require you to carry it out. Sometimes around here we are happier if the city doesn't know exactly what's going on - the old adage applies, "don't ask the question if you don't want to hear the answer." An alternative might be to hire a civil engineering firm yourself, and then you can decide whether to fix or live with the problem. I think it would be an engineering firm - or call around to them and to landscapers to ask who could help you to assess a drainage problem for a reasonable fee.

KarinL

I understand what you are saying and not sure we want the Township to come out with this issues yet. The water is gone there now. It dried up. We are thinking of a drain or some kind but not sure how we could run one and where back there. Not sure a landscaper would how to do this or who??

after my parents installed their in ground pool, the rear neighbor's yard began to flood after even a light rain. he dug a pit in teh lowest spot, then ran 4" PVC out to the curb to allow the water to run off. if he had not been such a butt my stepdad had already planned on installing a french drain that would divert the water to the pool drain goign out to the street. but right before they put the pool in he offered to pay half the cost of replacing HIS fence, then once my stepdad had the work done he refused to pay and ignored them. when he said somethign to them about the drainage, they told him it was his problem. his lawyer advised him it was as well.

anyway, i would install a 4" or 6" PVC pipe going under the bed the bird bath is in so that it can direct the water under the fence and to the other side.

Im wondering how long this pipe should go as we would have to dig under the fence and over behind his fence alittle I suppose. He has that Maple tree built up with a landscape wood and I think that is also making the water lay on our side of the fence. Don't want to dig too far on his side outback. (this is all township land behind our fence but we can have raised veggie gardens back there just no buildings of any kind)
How deep would you go and wide for this drain? What other materials would you suggest like stone???

if the land is lower behind the fence, then just stick it out from under the edge. this will act as a culvert to let water flow out past your bed there. from what i see the bed is acting as a dam and stopping the water. it does not look like you cna build the area up with out putting the shed partially underground, so a french drain with a culvert pipe would be a good option. and it is cheap. my parents did the same thing on the front corner of their backyard, total cost was about 10.00 for the PVC pipe and it took all of 2 hours to dig it out and install it.

If you first involve yourself with code offices and such, you may find yourself in a nightmare situation. A few years ago the town I grew up in would have classified this as wetlands and you'd be stuck with it! First find yourself a decent excavation contractor who has lived in the area forever and knows the soil and ins and outs of town politics and with him see if you can identify the cause and arrive at a reasonable solution. It may be as simple as a few yards of soil and some re-grading or as complicated as pulling off the topsoil, adding 6 inches of clay, re-grading the loam and providing drainage. If you determine the neighbors are making the situation worse then go to them and discuss it. They may be willing to put in a swale or some other simple modification rather than be faced with code enforcement and litigation and you'll not have just become extremely disliked in your neighborhood. I suspect that if your weather in PA. has been anything like ours in the northeast these last two years the reason it's worse is because your ground water table is saturated.

How long has the bike path been there? Does it have culverts for the drainage of the paved surface? That could be the cause of your water problem and then it would be the township's issue.

Jess,

From looking at your photo, the topography outside your yard is hard to determine. It looks like a downward slope to a path in a small valley. Your right side post and board fence has horizontal support rails that are slanted downward towards, so it would appear that the entire yard slopes downward into the lower right corner of your yard by the bird-bath and horse fence. Also from your photo it looks like the ice and ponded water is at or below the top of your plant borders.

To get a better and quantitative understanding of the drainage in your yard, I would suggest that you buy a line-level and string.

Attach the string to stake or other stationary reference point about 1-2 feet off the ground. The refence point should be "high-ground" or a fixed know location like a house corner. Run the string acorss the area taht is to be survey and attach it to another stake. Use the line-level to adjust the height of the string until the string is level between the two points of attachment. Now measure the distance from the string to the ground surface at several locations along the string. Run several transcets to bracke the area to be survey. No subtract the height of the reference location height from all of the other measurements. This will provide a topographic survey with respect to your reference point.

Measure the points in your ponded area. the planting bed heights, and extend a transect outside of your yard into the area behind your house.

Here is a link that might be useful: line level

At last, instructions pointed toward a solution.

>At last, instructions pointed toward a solutionYour post craps on everyone who took the time to respond before you.

bboy, I'm not known for having the skills of grace and diplomacy. Isabella's response was on point in a way the others weren't. In my opinion she deserves recognition for a superior answer.

Suppose you were called by your boss and shown an email of the homeowners problem. He then says "I want you to find a solution for this. Two weeks from now I want this person to tell me they know exactly what to do. And it better work. You can't do this, your next job will be mowing the lawn."

If it's me on the hot seat, I'm not going to be speculating on things that might work somewhere, sometime. No, I'm going to be trying to find out what the topo looks like there and my first response will look like isabella's.

PS Are there any of us that know the peak of our capability until the boss says "Do or die"?

well, the thing is you don't need a string level. unless this is in a parallel universe, water finds it's own level and will fill the lowest point it has access to. if you creat a dam, such as the bed behind the water, it cannot go past rapid enough to prevent pooling. simple soultiion is give the water a method to reach lower ground. to my naked eye the pics show that the land immediately behind the fence corner is lower than where the water is pooling.

pls8xx, you are being rude. isabella does give a very detailed way to find the level of the lawn, but was not the first intelligent post on teh matter.

The process of getting help on the internet is always a collaborative effort between the asker and the responders, and sometimes the asker hasn't given the key bits of information, and that was the problem here. The issue was raised, but not in a direct way, and so Jess didn't give us that info and maybe doesn't have it herself.

Things always go sideways in threads when the asker is looking for a solution to be prescribed - see Jess's question in her OP - when a great deal more diagnosis or problem analysis is required first. We don't act as a unit here; we are a gaggle of individuals and so it is always a matter of chance whether someone says the right thing that will redirect the OP productively - some people take offense when they don't get their answer right away, as if the forum were just another piece of computer software from which they can expect a response. To her credit, Jess has been here and has answered questions throughout but no one has actually ASKED for the topographical information that Isabella has, quite rightly, suggested that Jess measure. We've all made assumptions about the topography, and it is quite true that those assumptions should be checked.

We're all contributing here, and no one need be hammered with any of the pent-up aggression that a mother-in-law's visit may have, quite understandably, left you with. Mind you, if anyone needs to vent it, perhaps it's safer here - I can absorb some this year as it has been an MIL-less holiday.

But let's consider ourselves all vented... can we just move on?

Jess, we look forward to hearing where the higher ground is. But honestly, I think you need to make some phone calls to the types of people that have been suggested and see who you can get to come out and take a look and discuss the diagnosis with you. There is only so much that people on the internet can do.

KarinL

Isabella thanks for the info. Never dealing with water issues like this any info helps. Here are photo of it today. Better but still some water is there but better then a week ago/ I was thinking a drain running out to the right of the flowerbed where the white post and rail fence and wooden fence met. Of course this will then go behind my neighbors back yard and tree which is built up with wooden landscape rails. Just not sure how far this drain should run and where is the best place to start? Is there a book on Installing a trench drain for dummies???

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Might be something for you here.

Here is a link that might be useful: backyard drainage - Google Search

I just hate it when I have to agree with those calling me names.

"pls8xx, you are being rude"

Ouch. The truth do hurt. I guess I was rude, or crude, or at least direct. If I wasn't so lazy I could probably find a way to say things nice like karinl. There is a downside to being a redneck.

" ... but was not the first intelligent post on the matter."

I have to agree on this too. Every new method learned for dealing with drainage, whether it applies to the instant case or not, is another tool in a designers arsenal. Should we have a thread devoted to swapping tricks for drainage?

"to my naked eye the pics show that the land immediately behind the fence corner is lower than where the water is pooling.

That would be my guess too. If we were certain of that fact we could tell Jess to remove the beds/shrubs and straight grade the ground from the low point of the pool to the back fence; a simple shovel fix, no engineer needed. But are we certain based on the photos? I'm not.

Shoot, we could probably have a long and fruitful discussion on when a homeowner reaches the point where he should get professional help. What are the indicators, issues that require an engineer?

Then there is the title question ...
"How would you get rid of this water problem"
emphasis added
Those who faithfully answered that question gave Jess exactly what was asked and was surely a correct answer.

For drainage, my position is and always has been ...

For every project built on, or a part of, terra firma:

Rule #1
The first thing to consider in design, and the first thing to do in construction, is to take positive control of the water.

The first three things that need to be confirmed when considering drainage are:

1. For the area under consideration, the geographical point at which excess water leaves the property.

2. The character of the flow at the above discharge point.

3. The grade elevation for the above point.

The first two items dictate what is a lawful discharge of water the property owner can make. The last is the limiting and controlling factor in design without the expense of pumping.

I'm a big champion of the DIY homeowner. I happen to think that simple surface drainage analysis and design is something they can and should do. Unfortunately, I know of no web source that explains the process.