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lithnights

Yard drainage/flooding issue..need to pump water. HELP?

lithnights
12 years ago

I have a major drainage/flooding problem in my backyard that I'm hoping someone can give some advice on. My house is well situated on the 1/2 acre lot and we get no water in our basement, even without a sump pump. So that is great.

But the backyard is a mess. It is on the end of a string of lots (from the left) where I imagine there is a slight graded swale the whole way, and 6 backyards full of water slope towards me. I am the corner lot so it has nowhere to slope towards after me, and that area is below street level. Added in the fact that the lot behind me is a bit higher, has an in-ground pool 10 feet from the lot line, and 2 years ago they added a 3 car garage that is 10 feet from the line. So the impervious ratio on his lot is extremely high. Dealing with him or the township for solution is useless. Basically, I am getting lots of water and it has nowhere to go. It gathers during rains, and takes days/weeks to dry out. It makes much of my backyard useless at times.

This summer (record rainfalls in PA), I had to actually dig a hole and drop in a basement pump to pump the water (hundreds of gallons) to the street. This was a real pain and involved electrical cords, hoses, and me running out there every 10 minutes to check on it (no float on the pump). So in the fall, I built a dry well. I researched like crazy and installed. I dug 4 feet down and 4 feet across.. added the stone, put in the drywell, lined it with fabric, surrounded it with stone, covered it with fabric, and backfilled. I didn't expect much but I figured it would at least capture 50 gallons of water and slowly disperse it. Unfortunately, It has been pretty much full ever since the first rain. The soil is mostly clay so I'm assuming it just has nowhere to go. My attitude is that French drains, dry wells, rain barrels etc. just aren't going to cut it without pumping the water out.

Thus, I want to now install an underground pump system to drain the water from that area to the street. It's about a 50 foot run with a very slight grade up. I am looking for ideas on how to do this or any good websites or books that would help? I know I could hire a drainage contractor but I'm thinking I don't want to spend $5K or so (one estimate) to do this.

I figure I could run electrical conduit from the house to the dry well area. I could place a submersible sump pump into the dry well area, cover with a lid, back fill, and run 1 1/4 PVC trenched underground and run to the sidewalk. Then trench under the sidewalk and either use a pop up to disperse the water onto the area between the sidewalk and street (where it would flow over to the street), or just drill a hole in the curb and flow it to the street. I am looking into what code will allow me to do.

Sorry for the book, I just wanted to give more info than less. Please see the pictures which hopefully help.

Thoughts?

Thanks in advance!


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http://i675.photobucket.com/albums/vv119/lithnights/6DSC_0872.jpg

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