Drainage and culverts and ditches, oh my!

Update time:

The mowable ditch is fine on the one side, and terrible on the other.

Watching the water, I think a 4" or 6" pipe can handle the volume. How do I connect the 18" concrete job to the little corrugated job?

Do I use solid pipe, fill with rock, and then cover with dirt to plant grass?

I am ready to do this because my kids take three steps outside and are automatically covered in mud from head to toe. Grass won't grow there, only terrible weeds, and I can't mow in in, so I have to weedwack the piss out of it.

Don't reduce an 18" pipe down to 4 inches. The most inexpensive option would be to line the ditch with large rock (rip rap) so you don't have to mow it and to keep the mud down. Maybe talk to the county and tell them the water is causing an erosion issue on your property and they will do this for you.

If you want to hard pipe it talk to the county again and get permission to connect to the culvert, then use 18" corrugated polyethylene pipe with riprap at the new end of the pipe. Like you found before the pipe isn't cheap.

ditch and fill with sand

bgkast wrote: Don't reduce an 18" pipe down to 4 inches.

Seriously: Why not? I haven't seen that much water coming out of it.

bgkast wrote: The most inexpensive option would be to line the ditch with large rock (rip rap) so you don't have to mow it and to keep the mud down. Maybe talk to the county and tell them the water is causing an erosion issue on your property and they will do this for you. If you want to hard pipe it talk to the county again and get permission to connect to the culvert, then use 18" corrugated polyethylene pipe with riprap at the new end of the pipe. Like you found before the pipe isn't cheap.

The latter isn't going to happen. Not only is it too expensive, but it won't fit beneath the surface without lot more digging like the 4" or 6" would.

I'll try asking them back, but I doubt they'll help.

If the one mowable ditch isn't right, they likely will fix it as they are supposed to install it correctly and leave it functional. Time is likely of the essence.

As a diy job in a working ditch, it's not that hard to lay drain tile. Even I've done it, successfully to!

In reply to tuna55:

The flows you have seen are from standard, small rain events, not the 100 year storm event that the culvert was likely sized to pass.

If you reduce the pipe size the best case scenario is the road floods when you get the big storm event. Worst case it floods and damages your neighbors property or washes out the road.

I would not reduce the diameter without engineered calculations of the flow based on your local rainfall, the contributing area and land cover of the area upstream of the culvert.

You could provide a high flow bypass of your 4" pipe...i.e. small amounts of runoff enter the pipe, but if the pipe is overwhelmed the water can still flow above ground in the mowable ditch.

My house gets water from the uphill neighbor's place, there is a drainage swale to fix that.There's another swale on the other side of the house so my stormwater won't overflow my downhill neighbor's yard and so on both up and down the street. The interesting thing about these swales is instead of being dug in they have been strategically raised by using an earthen berm. If you can't picture it, let me know and I'll get you a shot or two.

In fact, here's a pretty decent shot of the one on the uphill side. You can see the end of it clearly, just past the tree in the background. The basketball goal and the crepe myrtle are both sticking out of it and my neighbor was kind enough to mow the top and side of it as well.

If you want to buy the bike, lemme know...

Landscaping, Dude. Water management is part of every home owners job description, whether its managing runoff or keeping the eavetroughs clear. If you don't like the word "Ditch", then don't make a ditch. "Swale" or "Slope" sounds so much more pleasant than "Water in my basement because I am trying to outsmart nature."

Bgkast has it right.

If you want to deal with the everyday rains put a 6" wide pvc trench drain "line" perpendicular to the flow and all the way across the active flow. 5 or 10 feet into the yard to pick up the surface water and run that pipe all the way to the back yard in 4 " pvc pipe. Put in a cleanout every 40 feet or so to maintain it. A larger rain event will flow across the trench and bypass your buried pipe but you won't know it because you will be inside like everyone else waiting out the storm.

I would just set one of these downstream of the road culvert to capture small flows and send them to your small pipe.

These guys are correct on all accounts. Cheap way is swale. Pipe is a lot more plus the county might make you put in concrete manholes or catch basins to transition pipe sizes, which adds more money. Plus covers for the structures. Swale is best in a side yard

I'll get some pics which might explain this better...

I have a similar issue in my back yard, water pools in a low spot that I would like to dry out faster than the 2-3 days it takes now. There's a creek in back that I could send the water to. Would I need to consult the county to get permission to drain to that creek, you think?

Here is the problem "mowable ditch". It took three months to get them to answer me. I can see why I pay taxes. I have to pay for these two guys to show up in separate trucks and stand there with their hands in their pockets telling me all of the things that they wouldn't do.

I was told that he might be able to add some rocks, but only below, and immediately downstream of the pipe. So, pointing out that this left exactly zero places to put a rock, I asked him to step into the ditch and show me. He refused. I thanked them for wasting my time and went inside.

bgkast wrote: I would just set one of these downstream of the road culvert to capture small flows and send them to your small pipe.

One of those for sure, with your pipe to the back. Once it dries out then you should be able to smooth it out enough to stay dry and grow grass.

You want to leave some ditch there though, just in case you get that big rain, so you may still have issues mowing the one side. If you don't like the trimmer than plant flowers or shrubbery and call that problem spot a "feature."

Woody wrote: Dry Creek Bed

+1 on that. It's the easiest, best looking way to solve drainage issues.

Move.

Never buy a house below grade.

BTDT, sold and moved before the house slid down the hill any further

G_Body_Man wrote:

Woody wrote: Dry Creek Bed

+1 on that. It's the easiest, best looking way to solve drainage issues.

But not totally cheap. I am leaning that direction. Kill stuff with fire, then call Woody to put out the mess, then put down weed paper and rocks.

Junkyard_Dog wrote: Move. Never buy a house below grade. BTDT, sold and moved before the house slid down the hill any further

It's not below grade. It goes down more behind my house.

What do you do at the edge of the dry creekbed, where the lawn meets the weed paper?