Every homeowner wants a lovely yard, and landscaping is a crucial process for getting a good yard. However, while landscaping is critically important, you have to understand that proper drainage is also of critical importance.
If you haven’t taken care of the drainage in your yard, it will take only one rainy season for your entire yard to be submerged in water. This becomes all the more plausible if your house is situated at the base of a slope.
As the water falls down the slope, it is going to pool up in your yard, and without proper drainage, it will continue to accumulate. Before you know it, the entire yard will be flooded, and the water will start pooling up in your house as well.
The best way to deal with this problem is to take care of these things before the rainy season. If you are going to build a yard, the first thing to do is take care of drainage.
If you go through a few city council websites, you will realize that they all talk about flooding problems and give a range of tips on how you can deal with these issues, especially during severe rainy seasons.
If you don’t want to deal with yard flooding problems, here are just a few simple tips that will help you out.
1 – Divert the Water Underground
During the rainy season, the water is going to gush through the gutters, and it will pour through the downspouts in high volumes. This is going to contribute heavily to the flooding if the water isn’t able to run out of your property.
The problem is generally caused by low spots, or sunken patches of land in the yard. This usually causes the water to pool up instead of running straight to the storm drain.
A wise solution to this problem is to make use of a French drain and divert all of the water from the surface under the ground. A French drain is simply an underground pipe with perforations that collects all of the water and then diverts it under the surface.
French drains are a relatively affordable and simple method that you can use to take care of the flooding problem. More importantly, you should know that the French drains are much more flexible than installing rigid pipes.
This gives you more freedom to customize the design and the configuration of the drain pipes however you please. Once you have installed the drain pipes, all you have to do is cover them with gravel, and then put some grass and soil on top.
You won’t even know that the French drains are there, and the problem of flooding will be resolved!
2 – Work on the Yard Grade
The yard grade is essentially the slope of the yard. It is perhaps the key determinant in how the water is going to flow from your property. It is also the most important factor that will affect your yard flooding.
If you want efficient drainage, you have to make sure that your yard has a minimum slope of at least 2% as it moves away from the house. For every 100 feet of your yard, that is a slide of at least two feet.
Improvising or changing the yard grade is going to be difficult if you have already built on the yard. Instead, you should consider checking the yard grade before you decide to start building the yard.
If the yard doesn’t have a suitable slope, the water is simply going to pool up in different spots and may even start pooling up near the foundation of your property, which is an absolute red flag.
The best way to improve the yard grade is to add some topsoil and spread it near the foundation, thus increasing the height slightly from the area close to your house. Then, in the low areas, you can remove some to allow the water to drain through easily.
If you don’t want to go through the trouble of improving the yard grade on your own, there are a number of landscaping companies that can do the job for you. They charge a nominal fee, so you won’t even have to pay over the top.
3 – Clearing Water From the Sidewalks
If the sidewalk or your patio is lower than the surrounding area of the yard, the water is going to pool up there, and it won’t be long before the entire area is covered with water. This can happen after a rainstorm, and the worst thing is that if you are not careful, the water is going to take several weeks before it completely evaporates.
Until it does, you won’t be able to use this area. Obviously, raising the patio or the sidewalk is not a wise idea, because it takes a lot of effort and costs a great deal of money.
Instead, you should consider using storm drain channels to eliminate the standing water and prevent more water from pooling up in the area. All you have to do is install the storm drain channels along the sides of the walkway!
Ideally, the storm drain channels need to be placed along the sidewalk, near to the lowest slope. Then, you can just connect the storm drain channels with a French drain, if you have installed one.
Once you do that, the water is simply going to pass through the storm drain channels and into the French drains, which eventually take them away from your yard. The best thing about installing these storm drain channels is that you don’t have to worry about them affecting the aesthetic appeal of your house.
There are some really attractive storm drain channels that are available nowadays, so they will effectively blend in with the surroundings. You won’t really have to worry about these storm drain channels sticking out like a sore thumb.
4 – Add a Sump Pump
This is not a preventive method, but one that can help get rid of all the water that floods in your yards. Needless to say, sump pumps are perhaps the most effective means of getting rid of the flooding in your yard.
But, you should know that these sump pumps are generally quite expensive, so you will have to invest a considerable amount of money. The sump pump simply sucks up all of the water from your yard, or particular spots, and then releases them into the storm drains.
They are generally installed in pits that are specifically dug at particular spots throughout the yard. As these pits continue to fill up, the sump pump will start pumping it and drain it into other areas.
While you can install a sump pump on your own, it’s generally recommended that you hire a professional to do it for you. There are a wide variety of different sump pumps available in the market, and the prices vary.
If you are on a budget, you can always opt for a secondhand or a refurbished sump pump as well. You might want to check the local classifieds to find people selling such equipment.
These are just some of the many different things that you can do to prevent yard flooding and keep your yard in pristine condition.
Ben has a bachelor’s degree in construction engineering. When not constructing or remodeling X-Ray Rooms, Cardiovascular Labs, and Pharmacies, you can find him at home with wife and two daughters. Outside of family, He loves grilling and barbequing on his Big Green Egg and Blackstone Griddle, as well as working on projects around the house.
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