On Apr 17, 3:02 pm, dpb wrote:
On Apr 17, 1:12 pm, chrisexv6 wrote:



On Apr 17, 1:59 pm, dpb wrote:

On Apr 17, 12:05 pm, chrisexv6 wrote: My neighbors yard is higher than my yard by about 3'. His property
slopes away from his house and towards my house. The grading around
my foundation on that side is not correct (i.e. its pretty much level)
so the water from his property ends up against my foundation during a
bad rain (like what we just got in the Northeast).

...

Is this the natural/original grade or was the house next door built
after yours and the drainage changed? If the latter, it may be
possible to require the neighbor to resolve the problem.

Guy bought empty lot next to us and tried the same trick -- finally
took a letter from the lawyer to really get his attention, but he had
to rearrange the initial idea for his driveway drainage to not
impinge.

It depends on local zoning rules/requirements and what the local
attitude towards enforcement of same, but in general it's a tenet that
new construction can't change runoff to the detriment of existing.

Nope the houses were built at the same time. After chatting with my
neighbor he explained to me that the previous owner (of my house)
actually built the side of our house UP to what it is now (at best, it
might be a 4" rise over a 20' run from my neighbors house) As it is,
I cant go up very much more, the siding of the house is about 6" off
the ground now, didnt want to get the yard within 4", so I can add
another 2" height and Ill have to grade it to a steeper slope, but I
dont care.....cant use the yard in that area anyway, and its more
important to stay dry.

Id love to force someone else to fix it for me but alas Im on my
own with this one (unless I choose to hire it out, but the machine is
coming to my house for another project, figured Id just do it myself
if I could).

In that case, I'm w/ Norminn that what I'd go for rather than trying
the french drain as the only techniqe is to build a berm between to
deflect the runoff away from the house and if needed in addition, a
gravel-bed channel to carry the runoff. That was actually a
significant portion of the solution between myself and the neighbor I
spoke of before.

If you try the french drain, there's a lot of water capacity needed
and from afar it's hard to advise on how much or what would be
needed. Depending on the slope and what soil and weather conditions
are like where you are, it's possible simply a shallow channel can be
seeded w/ grass and/or ground cover and be able to hold.

Thanks for the suggestions.

The only reason I immediately thought "french drain" was because I
figured (possibly wrongly) that it would have more water carrying
capability.

Seeing as how I need to re-grade from my foundation, I can probably re-
grade to a point 10' from my foundation, and then just have a drop off
of about 3" or so. That would qualify as a "swale", but I wouldnt be
able to run that ridge all the way to the back of my property (we do
use the back yard on that side of the house). It would re-direct the
water but eventually Id run out of ridge/swale, probably not far
enough away from the house. However, I might be able to gradually
lower the "ridge" into flat ground.

The amount of water we get usually is not an issue. We've had good
size downpours already this year and not had a problem. During
extreme circumstances, however, it becomes one. Extreme being 5" of
rain in a 10 hour period (this weekend) or 19" of rain over a 9 day
period (2 years ago). I went outside during the storm and could see
the issue.........water was puddled right up against my foundation.
Since water doesnt travel uphill (very well anyway ) correcting the
grading at the foundation would probably correct 85 or 90% of the
issue. I will definitely put a gravel covered channel at the bottom
of the new grading (does that make the new grading a "swale"? or does
a swale have to involve some sort of ridge that the water would run up
against?).......while i was digging, my thought was to drop pipe into
the gravel channel, so that it would help the water that does go in,
get out faster. This "french drain" would then be the "first line of
defense" for the water, and the foundation grading would be the second
line........presumably the foundation grading being the more important
of the two.

-Chris