On Apr 17, 4:36 pm, Oren wrote:
On 17 Apr 2007 11:12:31 -0700, 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).

-Chris

I've never built a French drain. Can you terrace the soil on this side
of the house? Say, in tiers and then plant landscape plants? As to
the drain, a landscape show I watched recently built a small one. They
used a screen (landscape type) along the sides, to prevent silt into
the gravel. The gravel was "river rock", the round stone edges allowed
better drainage.... The screen fabric was then folded on top of the
gravel. They went three feet deep for just a smaller area than you
mention.

Good luck.

--
Oren

"If things get any worse, I'll have to ask you to stop helping me."

Unfortunately it wouldnt be easy to landscape the area. There is a
window well on that side (the well itself was causing some of the
issues), and I cannot go much higher with the ground level before it
hits the siding on the house. If I wanted to tier landscape, Id have
to dig out quite a bit of soil to make a low spot, and that would
probably make things worse (water would just flow faster from my
neighbors side).

Re-grading is my best option, the only question was if (how) to put a
french drain at the low spot between our yards.

River rock you say? Did they use it for the whole drain? The price
of river rock vs .75" gravel here is astounding........80.00/yd vs
26.00/yd. I estimate Ill need 7 yards total. The local stone co.
suggested the 3/4" (non river rock).

-Chris