Drainage Solution for Downward Sloping Driveway?
Karen Roan
10 months ago
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millworkman
10 months agolast modified: 10 months ago3onthetree
10 months agoRelated Discussions
need a solution to a garden path drainage problem?
Comments (3)Forgive me if I'm telling you things you already know, but I'll mention it for others, if not for you. Erosion is caused by two things - volume and speed.Anything you can do to reduce either one reduces erosion. The lawn is good because it has a lot of blades that the water has to go around which slows it down and also allows the soil to absorb some (both reducing speed and volume). Also, slope translates to speed. Longer slopes translate into increasing speed. Anything you can do to disperse water rather than concentrating it is reducing volume. Sometimes we combine drainage so that we deal with it in fewer places. But sometimes it is not a good idea because you create a big problem instead of several smaller and easier to deal with problems. Since you mentioned that the path is a convenient way to divert water, it makes me think that it is intercepting water that might be moving across the lawn and concentrating it (making a bigger volume) more or less in a channel that is the path. If it goes downhill on a steady slope, water will build up speed and erode. Interupting the slope with a step every once in a while will flatten the grades between the steps, thus slowing down the water. If the path has a cross slope, the step can divert the water off of the path at that point removing it from joining up with the water that the path is accepting between that and the next step. You may have seen this technique on hiking trails just using logs. Even if the water has to pass over the step, it will be reaching the edge of the step with very little speed. although dropping over the edged of a step will add speed to the water, it has ery little time to accelerate and lands on another slow slope. It never builds momentum. Another good technique is to privide better drainage closer to the source. It seems that you hinted that the driveway may be the biggest source of runoff. I will assume that the water is not channeled in a paved swale that concentrates it, but rather drifts off onto the lawn all along its path. In that case, a narrow deep trench filled with larger stone can hold some volume and provide side and bottom area for the soil to absorb some of it. I would not continue such a trench where the driveway slopes a lot as water would rush along the trench. A retention swale that holds volume and traps it untill the soil absorbs it is an option, but most people don't like to have a puddle or wet area. Some have the space for it and don't mind. Another thing is a detention swale that captures the volume and holds it temporarily by having it drain out in a limited manner such as making the swale drain out of a small pipe that can only handle so much water. It detains the water only to let it go on its way in a controlled release. Compaction of your stone in the path is not really much of a problem for water erosion. Smaller surface stone will wash with less force than larger surface stone. Stone in swales is often refered to as "energy dissipation" material where it takes the force of fast concentrated water coming off of a pavement or from a pipe. It takes the impact and slows the water down in the initial portion of the swale. The slope of the swale will then take over in managing the speed of the water and the stone is no longer necessary. Hopefully, this will give you some insight to help you analyze what is happening on your site and some different ideas on what might be options for your specific situations....See MoreNeed ideas re driveway drainage options
Comments (3)Your proposal about how to solve (by raising grade at garage) sounds at first hearing as if on the wrong trail. With grade and drainage issues, it's important to know how water flows onto the property and how it exits the property. Knowing what it does in a small area is not enough. You would need to show what grade is doing all around the area, and how it exits onto the neighbor's property. I suggest you sketch out a plan of how the house, garage and drive are situated and then post some photos (not close-ups) that SHOW the grade. You might include some arrows on the plan to show the down-slope and where the water is running. In order to show the grade, the camera must view transverse to the slope and be held level. If it is held viewing parallel, in-line with the slope, it will not show what the slope is doing. In all cases, grade must slope away from buildings for a few feet (10' is considered the usual minimum but is not always possible.) It sounds like this is not occurring around the garage. Be sure to show what IS happening there....See MoreSOS! oil-based driveway sealer horror. Any solution?
Comments (43)I think alot had to do with my "babysitting it" (to the extreme detriment of my already-existent arthritis). I kept at it with that brush & squeegee you see depicted above. I raked & blowed many tons of leaves from 10am. until about 5pm with no break. Re: your John Deere experience, anything you can do i can do better. Years ago, i decided to polyurethane the hardwood floor of this approx. 10'x9' computer room. I lined up a guy who turned out not to know what the heck he was doing. The first part of my nightmare was that the horrible local Walmart personnel lied to me on the phone by lazily stating they don't have Minwax water-based polyurethane in stock. (Afterward i happened to go there, and saw they actually DID have it!) Anyway, suffice that i then went to a closer store, where they just had Ben-Moore oil-based polyurethane. I then watched as the young punk i'd hired merely turned the can upward & downward prior to opening it, so i asked him "isn't it necessary to mix it with a stick"? And he confidently assured me no, he'd done it before with no problems. (He never bothered reading the instructions). Like a fool i trusted him. Result: My house stank toxically for days & it never dried. I needed to get someone over to scrape it off to the tune of $100. As i said, most hiree's i've had over the years were unsatisfactory, and some were downright horrible. The latest whom i contracted for my rotten windows/etc. - i just found out from the local consumer agency that the guy has known problems, and that nearly 20 complaints were put out on him. They said i should get the ball rolling with a formal complaint, including cancelled check, contract, etc. I did that today....See MoreDrainage Solution?
Comments (1)Speaking as someone who had major drainage issues toward the foundation finally resolved by professionals and a lot of money, if this drainage plan was not done by an experienced pro as an overall plan, you need to find one and not have this be a one off solution to water control....See MoreKaren Roan
10 months agoPatricia Colwell Consulting
10 months agoKaren Roan
10 months agokl23
10 months agoJAN MOYER
10 months agolast modified: 10 months ago3onthetree
10 months agoartemis78
10 months agolast modified: 10 months agoA Mat
10 months agoJAN MOYER
10 months agolast modified: 10 months agolatifolia
10 months agohbeing
10 months agoLavender Landscape Design Co.
10 months ago
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