Learn Me Some Drywells & Automatic Sump Pumps

[alloy]

I learned something myself. I had no idea there were water powered sump pumps.

Food for thought.

 

[matthewsx]

Unfortunately there’s a big difference doing this in the city vs. more rural locations.

Hate to say it but your first move would probably be consulting with a licensed engineer that’s experienced in such things in your municipality. Anything that discharges off your property can draw the attention of the county.

If there’s any option of restoring the original drainage underneath your neighbors wall that may be the best bet. Perhaps you can work with them to improve their drainage at the same time.

I believe gravity flowing to storm drains should be fine, sump pumps typically need to discharge onto your property, not directly to city infrastructure unless permitted.

My experience here is from a small village but I’ll bet LA county will have similar rules.

Good luck,

John

 

[C-Bag]

I guess it all depends on the kind of ground you have. Where I live there is no such thing as truly flat ground. We have sand and clay. When dry it’s almost waterproof but once the powder is soaked it’s a total sponge. I’m also approx 6’ below the street. I got firsthand intro to how water flowed on my lot 2wks after we moved in and we had a crazy storm that parked on top of us for 12hrs straight and we got 8” of rain in that 12hrs.

The low spot was the front gate/arbor to our courtyard. I personally HATE sumps as no sump I’ve ever been around has ever not left me flooded. How can they not fail? So the arbor needed to be replaced anyway so I dug down 3x3x3 and lined it with 1/4” wire cloth and filled it with road base while incorporating the foundation of my all metal arbor. The small flower bed next to it in front corner of the garage was filled with pea gravel and was the intro and filter to the big drain under the arbor. My mistake was not lining it with wire cloth because there is a huge ancient rose bush that grows over the arbor and it was complicated to manage. Of course the gophers came up in it and filled it with dirt messing up the incredible ability to absorb rain. So it needs to be dug back out and new gravel installed.

My version of a French drain gets an accumulation under the gate under hard rains but within 10-15min or if the rain slows it’s gone. It’s been going now for almost 15yrs. The original occupants according to the neighbors just lived with a 2x4 bridge of sorts during the winter. We don’t need that at all.

 

[OCJohn]

Hate to say it but your first move would probably be consulting with a licensed engineer that’s experienced in such things in your municipality. Anything that discharges off your property can draw the attention of the county.

If there’s any option of restoring the original drainage underneath your neighbors wall that may be the best bet. Perhaps you can work with them to improve their drainage at the same time.

Solid lawful advice.

Restoring the original drainage would be more trouble than it's worth in this case. Between the concrete driveway, block wall and its concrete footer(!) there is nowhere to dig that doesn't involve costly new concrete work. The driveway's houseward side is nearly as tight. But without a wall footer on that side, I did have room to bury some sprinkler supply lines years ago. There's room enough to re-excavate and add another line out to the street.

I care about doing things "right" but also sensibly. I meet or exceed state and local building code whenever possible. But I'm also willing take the risk/responsibility of respecting the "spirt" of the code where city planners are more concerned with right than sensible. I think there's an under $1000 solution to this, with good planning and a lot of digging. A $10,000+ hardscape solution is just not in the cards.

 

[OCJohn]

I guess it all depends on the kind of ground you have. Where I live there is no such thing as truly flat ground. We have sand and clay. When dry it’s almost waterproof but once the powder is soaked it’s a total sponge.

Our soil is pretty sandy and drains fast. My initial thought was a drywell/basin alone without a pump. But a little math on roof and driveway runoff area convinced me that I'd be a fool not to plan for a pump.

 

[matthewsx]

Solid lawful advice.

Restoring the original drainage would be more trouble than it's worth in this case. Between the concrete driveway, block wall and its concrete footer(!) there is nowhere to dig that doesn't involve costly new concrete work. The driveway's houseward side is nearly as tight. But without a wall footer on that side, I did have room to bury some sprinkler supply lines years ago. There's room enough to re-excavate and add another line out to the street.

I care about doing things "right" but also sensibly. I meet or exceed state and local building code whenever possible. But I'm also willing take the risk/responsibility of respecting the "spirt" of the code where city planners are more concerned with right than sensible. I think there's an under $1000 solution to this, with good planning and a lot of digging. A $10,000+ hardscape solution is just not in the cards.

If you can do it cheap, and on the weekend/night go for it.

I think you understand well the risks. If a drywell will work that’s an excellent solution. I dug one for my house in Mesa AZ and it did the trick. Maybe drop a line to the bottom that will hook to a pump with enough lift to get you out to the street.

Another thought is a cistern so you can save some of the water for drought times. More money but if you put it in line with the drywell maybe best of all worlds.

John

 

[C-Bag]

In that first storm the water got within 12” of the front door. The way storms moved was also instructive. It blows against the east side of the house and then goes down the side to the driveway/garage, across and to the arbor. When there was cloud bursts I could literally see a wave at the arbor. One of the first things I did was take out the brick walkway that connected the rear patio to the side of the driveway/garage as it was acting like a sluice box channeling the rain to the driveway. This slowed it down a bunch. But this is the thing with sandy soil, it eats gravel. If it’s not supported with something like wire cloth it just disappears and you are back to square one. They had put literally TONS of gravel on the lot but either with nothing, plastic(stupid) or weed barrier(so-so) and both don’t last and don’t help absorb water.

Because the whole lot was full of submerged gravel I decided to make a gravel sifter out of 3/4” EMT frame with some bearings and a plastic 55gal drum that I holesawed 3” holes in and put 1/4” wire cloth over powered by a HFT pipe threader. I sifted for weeks and recovered I don’t know how many yards of gravel. Most of the gravel was at least 24” down. The area between the back patio and the driveway had at least 2 yards of gravel once sifted. All now a rock bed with stepping stones and no water reaches the driveway anymore. Cutting my load to the main catchment at least by half. I believe it’s all about slowing the water with gravel and because of the sandy ground once wet, it can absorb way more than math can envision. My neighbor fills his 220gal tote in a couple of hours of one gutter. Meanwhile probably more than that is collecting off my steep driveway and roof of my house and garage into the arbor with nothing overflowing.

 

[matthewsx]

Yep, completely different situation here in California vs. when I lived in Michigan.

Latest storms are showing folks who didn’t have to worry much how things are changing.

I had mortar and gravel put around the new foundation on our addition but the contractor let it get filled in with clay. Now we’ll have to dig it all out and probably replace the drain tile that was just installed.

Drainage is always site specific.

John

 

[matthewsx]

Deconstruction has started on the framing that was done wrong.

Fortunately we have someone competent on the project now.

John

 

[Boswell]

You could get a water tank and capture the water from the roof run-off for re-use. Watering plants or with a pump and some filters use for your daily water needs. I live 100% from rainwater and collect about 1200 gallons per inch of rain on average. I have 16K gallons of storage