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Driveway drainage issues

18 years ago

I'm a new homeowner in need of advice with our driveway. Our garage door is located at the lowest part of the property, and when it rains, we get water up against the door and coming into the house.

We called a paving contractor, and he suggested that we install a channel drain in front of the garage to divert the water.

Does anyone have experience with this? What is the best way to go about installing it ourselves? Where and how should we divert the water? Right now, we were thinking of going out into the front yard with perforated tubing in a gravel bed about 20 feet - would that be sufficient?

Please help!

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Comments (3)

laplanter
18 years ago
They call it a french drain. We had to do the same thing to our house in TX. The easiest way is to rent a trencher, dig down about 18 inches & layer some river rock or "sewer rock" in the bottom. Then go in with the needed length of the black preforated pipe. I suggest also using the fabric sleeve covering that they sell. We didn't & the pipe would get clogged with dirt over time. We covered the pipe with another layer of dirt & then rocks & used it as a rock feature in our yard.
Our neighbors in TX did the same thing but put metal grating over top of theirs. The people across the street from our new house did a french drain & they just covered the pipe with dirt. It seems to work well any of those ways.
As for diverting the water we just snaked the flexible pipe down the length of the garage & curved it so it would drain off into the side yard.
msafirstein
18 years ago
We had a big problem with water coming in the garage at our last house. I was so glad when we finally moved.

If you are considering installing a drain, I would not suggest using metal grating as the cover. We had a grated drain running the length of the garage door and in the winter it would fill with water and freeze and then it really flooded! Otherwise the grated drain worked well but in the winter it was a PIA.
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Good evening, Lara. It is difficult to see from the pictures what grades you are dealing with near the garage, except just adjacent where the drain tile lays. My initial thought is that you need reroute the pipe away from the garage and house. Never empty a pipe near a structure. You are bound to have troubles. If possible, run it out into the yard, at least temporarily. When the ground thaws, if you are in a bowl (there is nowhere you can drain the water to because your home sits at the lowest point of the property), trench and bury the pipe, running it into the center of a stone pit. The pit should be least 3’x3’x3’. If the soil in your area is slow draining, as with clay, dig even deeper. Dig a pit. Line the sides and bottom of the pit with 4oz geo-textile fabric/ landscape fabric to keep soil from mixing with the stone thereby clogging it and eliminating its free draining nature. Backfill with 3/4” crushed stone to within 8 inches of the top of the pit. Compact with a hand tamper every 6 inches. Lay additional landscape fabric on top of the stone. Cover with high quality topsoil/compost mix. Seed and fertilize with appropriate grass seed mix.
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For sure don't drive on the unsupported portion. It's preferable that drainage be solved at the ground surface by proper grading, if at all possible. Then, one does not need to worry about underground pipes clogging or their capacity being maxed out. It looks like there's a lot water being handled. (So much for the ability of loose rocks to counter erosion!) If I understand what you're saying about the vast bulk of water entering at the mouth of the drive, we see it commonly solved by people adding a speed-bump-like hump at the drive entrance where it joins the street. Unfortunately, it's a band-aid. It works but doesn't look all the great. A slightly upgraded band-aid would be to cut out a cross strip of drive and reshape a hump into it. It would be good for you to add a picture taken from the street showing the entire path up to the garage.
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duncan_c_hotmail_com
15 years ago
I have a drainage problem although it is not really a driveway problem, I have a pool area in my back yard and a pation area in my front yard both have tiles covering them but the cowboy contractor who did the job made a hash of the slopes and everything is sloping to the house, I want to know is there some sort of drainage system I could install to stop the water running into the house, even if it means me having to cut channels and install some sort of drainage I have to interrupt the flow direction to the house any help would be gratefully appreciated

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