On Apr 17, 7:51 pm, Norminn wrote:
My reason for suggesting putting in some kind of landscape feature with
a berm is that a a rise of a couple of inches might be enough to divert
water that runs down from your neighbor. It would be exceedingly easy
(on a normal sized lot) to lay down that much soil and keep it in place
with sod or other plants. You would need to figure out where the water
will go if you divert it.

We had lots of small problems in the lawn at our condo that I fiddled
with. One was that after many years of running edgers along the same
line, there was quite a hump of lawn along the building with a ditch
next to it. In some places, it had exposed sprinkler pipes that would
then get run over by the mower. In some places I just hit it with a
strong stream of water - the grass stayed in place and the dirt went
into the ditch. Wasted some water ) I found concrete doughnuts 6"
down, with no protection of sprinkler heads that hubby had to keep
fixing. Landscape problems sometimes have simple solutions.

We also had a great deal of erosion behind our seawall - not visible in
places because the sod was so healthy it covered the tunnels between the
washouts - kind of dangerous to walk on. That was fixed by putting some
filter fabric behind the weep-holes in the seawall, gravel behind it,
and filled up with soil.

You may need French drains, but that is a major project. If soil is
saturated, from continuous rain, they might not do any good, but I
really don't know.

Its a possibility.......I could take the 2" extra rise than I can get
without hitting the bottom of the siding, and basically make a ledge
out of it......2" of soil out 10', would create a decent height berm
between us and the neighbors. French drains are a lot of work...the
only reason I even thought of it is because I have the machine coming
for another project (son needs a swing set!), but since it will be
here for almost 3 days and 8 machine hours, I figured while I was at
it I might as well fix some things around (literally!) the house.

I like the berm idea.......the issue I have with it is where it will
run off into my yard. My back yard is basically a hill, my plan was
to divert the water back there to let it run right down the hill. It
would be a pretty long berm its about a 60' distance. It would be
a long french drain as well, but that would be level with my yard, and
less intrusive. In the area next to the house (where my neighbors
water flows), I might do both the berm and the french drain, gradually
lowering the berm into the level of the rest of the yard.

-Chris