Drainage Issue

[SilverJK]

Okay, so I'm going to install a french drain to channel water away from my house. My problem is, on my street there is no drainage ditch. Where do i drain to? Will the city let me drain the water to the street? Also any suggestions on how to grade the land away from the house. My house isn't very high off the ground (years of sinking i suppose) so i'd like to not build up any dirt really so how do i create a slope to move the water away? I've been looking around at other houses and can't really get an idea of what others are doing.

So here is my question to all my gutterless heights neighbors (especially those with houses that don't sit very high off the ground)

How are you keeping water from going under your house???

Curt

[RedScare]

Your house is probably not sinking. Years of mulching grass clippings will raise the land surrounding the house. Resodding will add a couple of inches immediately as well. As for draining to the street, consider running the pipe to the curb and installing a pop-up drain right next to the curb. It looks like the picture below. You can also cut out the curb and place the drainpipe in the curb and re-concrete around it. The City will require a permit for a curb cut.

Pop-up drain

[Jesse]

Does your neighbor have a basement you can drain into?

[musicman]

i ended up removing dirt on the portion i was most worried so that i could create a slope away from the house (approx 3' wide). at the lowpoint, I installed yard drains so that the water that did come off the roof would have a means of getting to the curb. having enough slope is critical though so that the water will get to the curb. i've seen a couple where slope was limited and when the water got up above the curb, it started to back up into the yard.

[RedScare]

i ended up removing dirt on the portion i was most worried so that i could create a slope away from the house (approx 3' wide). at the lowpoint, I installed yard drains so that the water that did come off the roof would have a means of getting to the curb. having enough slope is critical though so that the water will get to the curb. i've seen a couple where slope was limited and when the water got up above the curb, it started to back up into the yard.

As long as the yard drain is higher than the pop-up drain, gravity will push the water out, but you are correct that there must be a slope to the yard drain. It doesn't have to be much at all. An inch will do it.

Since we do not freeze here, leaving water in the pipe is not a problem. You can also install perforated pipe to help disperse the water along the way.

[SilverJK]

the curb is actually chipped down in a good spot, so i think i'll put the pop oup in front of that. I'm guessing i'll still need a permit since i'm going under the sidewalk. I think i'll also grade the yard away from the house a little bit (remove some dirt and relay the grass). Now i just need to acquire a few more shovels so i can put the whole family to work during Christmas.

[RedScare]

the curb is actually chipped down in a good spot, so i think i'll put the pop oup in front of that. I'm guessing i'll still need a permit since i'm going under the sidewalk. I think i'll also grade the yard away from the house a little bit (remove some dirt and relay the grass). Now i just need to acquire a few more shovels so i can put the whole family to work during Christmas.

If the curb is chipped, I would chip out a little extra and run the pipe straight into the gap. Then I would concrete around it, reforming the curb. I would do it on a weekend and skip the permit. If anyone said anything, I would show them the picture that I took ahead of time of the damaged curb. If you do it on a weekend, no one will say a thing.

As for going under the sidewalk, no permit is required. Google 'tunneling under sidewalk' for several methods of running the drain pipe under the sidewalk without damaging it. I'll be doing that very thing myself in a few weeks, though I have a drainage ditch.

Good luck

EDIT: I do not recommend placing perforated pipe under the sidewalk. You don't want it inadvertantly wallowing out the dirt under the sidewalk.

[SilverJK]

Maybe i'll just redo that whole section of the curb, as well as the entrance to my driveway (crazy narrow with harsh curbs) so my friends will stop destroying their cars when they back out.

I was planning to use perforated below the roof line, and solid the rest of the way.

I've used the copper tubing nozzle in a pvc pipe method to dig laterally before = ]

[ricco67]

Then again, you could always just collect the rain water for lawn use.

[SilverJK]

I'm already planning to use a rain barrel (from gutters) off of my detatched garage... Plus to use this water i'd have to use a pump (can't gravity feed from the ground). Although i do have several water pumps just sitting around...

[musicman]

when i got my permit, they did require a higher quality pipe through the curb and under the sidewalk. since i used schedule 40, there was no problem and they didn't bother to look at the portion on my property.

[SilverJK]

It was too cold over christmas/new years to get my friends/family to help dig, so the goal now is to get it done this weekend.

My plan is to drain straight to a pre drilled hole that is already in the curb. (approx. 4"). I'm not planning to get a permit but will have to dig between the sidewalk and the curb. Do you think this will cause any issues?

[musicman]

I'm not planning to get a permit but will have to dig between the sidewalk and the curb. Do you think this will cause any issues?

depends if you have a nosey neighbor or an aggressive inspector. you may luck out completely. best of luck

[RedScare]

It was too cold over christmas/new years to get my friends/family to help dig, so the goal now is to get it done this weekend.

So, what would it take for you to postpone this project until July, when we would appreciate the plummeting temps?

[cj1]

I am not sure of the best way for you to create a drain outlet, but having done this project before and I can share a few things from my experience. I ran into a problem because I didn't bother calculating in advance how much dirt I would displace. Instead, I went with the idea that it didn't look like much. Well, it was. For one, I made an early mistake of not carrying the dirt far enough away from the dig so that it didn't get in the way later on, particularly on the sides of my house where my property is narrow. Second, when all 90 feet off drain pipe was done and covered I still had about 3 cubic yards of dirt and rock left which I had to pay to get hauled away. Third, dealing with all that dirt, I did a lot of damage to the rest of my yard while hauling it around. The lawn recovered but it looked ugly for a long while.

The hardest part of the dig was going under the sidewalk, not so much because I had to dig sideways but rather because there was a sub-layer of rock had been put in beneath it. The remainder of the run was easier, but not without a lot of hitches caused by roots or large, deeply embedded stones. Once I had a level channel run deep enough to contain the pipe, I went back and shaved dirt down along the run to get the water to run off, using a trickle from a garden hose at the head and watching where the water pooled.

It's worked great over the 5 years since I did it; However, I still have nightmares about this project. I swore to myself several times while working on it that I would break all my fingers and toes before I would try something like it again. Friends abandoned me. I paid day laborers lots and lots of money and they abandoned me. The rains began to fall. Covered head to toe in mud, each day would seem to end with even more work than when it began. Dirt was everywhere. Undoing it was impossible. The point of no return happened quickly after the first turn of the shovel. I had to keep going. I could not stop.

Of course, it did finally end but not before I thought about digging a slightly bigger hole and covering myself. Well, OK, not really but you get my point. I hope you plan better than I did.