I would think you would want a swale, this should be done on a neighborhood
basis though. The overflow from the upper retaining basin should be directed
in such a swale behind al the houses and ultimate to a creek or river. If
the upper basin just goes into your yard then I think that's bad.
Unfortunately you cannot do this on your own. Everyone involved would need
to do it, cooperatively. I have such a swale behind my house, it runs behind
all houses on this side of street. It take surface water from all the
properties on my side of the street and directs it to a retaining basin
which in turn drains into a river when saturated.

My suspicion is this. You will most likely not be able to fully control the
water at this house. Therefore you will not likely be able to finish your
basement and from what you have said, the back yard will not be useable at
times of the year. It sounds like the house is already 'discounted' for
these issues, and possibly others.

Did you pick the design or did the builder? Are you looking at the house the
builder is building on 'spec'?


wrote in message
oups.com...
Thanks for the great post! The back slopes down some, so the garage
isn't the lowest point. It's not a steep slope, but gradual. I just
hope the water doesn't drain into the basement from the driveway. I
haven't looked to see if it is sloped or not. As you can kind of see
from the below pic, the driveway does slope away near the left side, I
just hope thats enough. There will probably need to be a drain put
there because it seems to be holding water:

http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/utseay...6c.jpg&.src=ph

My property stops at the tree line. It's a huge lot for the price we
paid, but I think we got a good deal because it is located in a natural
drain. There is a retaining pond in the subdivision above us, and when
that over flows it goes right through the six acre lot these 9 houses
were built on. The first pic below is how bad it use to get when the
pond would flood. Since then they have raised the pond 2 ft (doesn't
seem enough for me) and the houses were built on the raised land (which
doesn't seem to have been sitting long enough to fully perk to keep the
foundation from settling and cracking 5 or 6 years down the road).
The second picture is why this around floods. It all flows to the
proper below ours, but backs up. This only happens in extreme cases,
but I have been told by the neighbors this is about 2 or 3 times a
year. So the portion of the yard will not be able to be used for
anything permanent, as it will flood a few times a year:

Pic 1
http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/utseay...6f.jpg&.src=ph

Pic 2
http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/utseay...dd.jpg&.src=ph

I've investigated this pretty heavily, and most people are telling me
not to buy it. The main reason is because I'll have a back yard thats
flood prone. I'm not sure if that's enough to have me pass up this
good deal. From thos pics, I feel like there is no way for that water
to get to my house. A few weeks out of the year I may not be able to
use that back back yard, but then again, is that worth buying a house
in a similar neighbor hood for 20 to 30K more? It's a tough decision,
but I have a week to decisde.