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The house next door to us is slightly elevated (about 6-8 inches) and their yard slants towards ours. Their drainage system seems pretty poor so during heavy rains water tends to build up on the deeper side of their yard, which inevitably finds its way under our wooden fence and into our yard. Since it's more water than the ground can handle we end up with a lot of standing water on that side.
I'm going to talk to them today to see if they can sort out their gutters but I was wondering if there's anything we can do to prevent this on our end?
I live in a neighborhood 'in the hills', and drainage, or runoff, is not something one can attribute to a neighbor simply because it happens to flow towards our house. Its sorta the natural order of things.
I had a spot near one side of our house that had a negative grade and caught a lot of runoff, to the point water seepage was occuring in that corner of the basement. I had to build the grade up along the foundation and create a swale to carry it away. Fortunately (or unfortunately depending on your view) the water now flows to another neighbors yard. I hope they have good natural run off to flow it off their property. And so on and so on..
Unless each house in your neighborhood has some ability to drain to something like curb and gutter, I would assume the onus is upon oneself to protect your property from run off. Good luck.
Thanks for the suggestions. Going to look into those.
Also, someone I talked to suggested building a concrete retaining wall on either side of the fence facing the neighbor in question. The fence sits about a foot or two away from the property line so building it on the outside isn't a problem. He also suggested talking to them about using a downspout extension to redirect the water to another part of the yard or even build a drywell (which might be pushing it since technically it isn't their problem, but I'd be happy to help do it).
Anyway, would doing either (or both) of these help much? The retaining wall seems like a decent idea and we were thinking about laying down a concrete walkway between our house and the fence on that side anyway. I figure I can just get the concrete guys to do it all at once.
It's hard to picture it without some pics. Sometimes it's cheaper to swale it or install some drain basins and move it elsewhere.
A retaining wall is fine, but water will well up against it, so again without a proper drain installed under the wall you could run into problems... Ask me how I know...
We had your problem. When we moved here, there was no problem, as there is a drain between my and my neighbors yard, with a pipe that goes under my property and empties out into my woods. Our original neighbors moved out & new ones moved in....and they are very landscape happy. They did a beautiful job landscaping the barren property, but in the process, changed the natural course run-off water took between the properties. The first rain after their changes brought an small river across my driveway...and created my houses version of the Grand Canyon in my driveway. We had to have stone delivered to fix the driveway. After the second rain washed away all the stone we bought...we marched over there and knocked on the door to discuss it. They were not very receptive, but Mr P wasn't backing down. They did cooperate & took out some of their plantings and landscaping that was changing the water's flow. Now we're all happy.
drainage is a huge issue for us as well. our neighborhood is older and does not have any real storm sewer system. our sump pump runs all of the time and water drains to the street, where it has to run over half the block to reach the catch basin at the corner! when it rains, our backyard looks like a small pond. However, we can't raise our yard up and cause the water to run onto someone else either!
Depending on how your property lays out, you can install your own catch basin. They have smaller ones at Home Depot and Lowe's. Trench down to install some drainage pipe--being sure to line your trench with gravel so the water can filter through and/or continue to the end of the drainage line. It should slope downwards toward the end of the line, which hopefully will be in the street gutter/drainage. Sometimes the drainage pipe will have a sleeve on it to keep debris, like roots, from blocking/plugging the pipe.
By doing this you are redirecting the water away from your property. You can go back and place a sidewalk over the trenched area, leaving the catch basin exposed. We've done this and it worked out great.
If you decide to put in a retaining wall, be absolutely certain it is put in correctly with a french drain and gravel on the "water catch" side of the wall, or else there will be problems....you'd be surprised how much damage a "little bit" of drainage water can do to a concrete block wall.
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Originally Posted by multics
The house next door to us is slightly elevated (about 6-8 inches) and their yard slants towards ours. Their drainage system seems pretty poor so during heavy rains water tends to build up on the deeper side of their yard, which inevitably finds its way under our wooden fence and into our yard. Since it's more water than the ground can handle we end up with a lot of standing water on that side.
I'm going to talk to them today to see if they can sort out their gutters but I was wondering if there's anything we can do to prevent this on our end?
Sorting gutters wont help unless they channel the water elsewhere thru drains etc.. Water will run downhill. If you try to dam the water in their yard it will find a way to get to yours eventually. The water will work at any barrior until it erodes it away. I agree a swale or a french drain would be best.
If you do a drainage system on your property where will you be channeling the water. How much space is between your house and the fence.
I did a retaining wall using AB block at my last house, and it had drain tile behind it sitting atop crush and run, then the backside was filled with #57 stone for drainage.. Major project.
Also ran the underground drains as mentioned. I installed it alongside a stone walkway I did. Our house was situated downhill on a steep grade, and the front yard, although swaled, would get flooded out and half our gravel driveway wound up in the grass.
One big catch basin and a series of smaller drain gates did the trick!
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