# Swale Issues Again



## SGrabs33 (Feb 13, 2017)

This is the time of the year that my swale really gives me problems. After any of our descent spring showers the water builds up and stays soaked/wet for up to a few days. I am going to try some more regular apps of Penterra this year for sure.

Also thought about taking my progplugger and taking it all the way down the swale 3-6 plugs wide and backfilling with sand. Anyone have any idea if that would be worthwhile or wasted work?

Here are a few random pics of the swale area:


----------



## ahartzell (May 18, 2017)

Is that grading necessary for drainage? If not, sand level it. If you can't do a lot of leveling then penterra, aerate and sand, or French drain?


----------



## Greendoc (Mar 24, 2018)

Why is there a ditch going through the middle of your back yard? If that needs to be a drain, I would make it a drain complete with channels with grates and pipe taking the water out of the yard. Otherwise, I would fill it in and make the lawn level.


----------



## SGrabs33 (Feb 13, 2017)

Yes, the grading is necessary unfortunatley. Very jealous of members flat lots.

I have aerated in the past once. I didn't see much noticeable change but I know one time would do too much. That's why thought proplugging it would be like "extreme aeration".

French drain is def an option. I just don't want to shell out the cash for that right now.


----------



## ahartzell (May 18, 2017)

SGrabs33 said:


> French drain is def an option. I just don't want to shell out the cash for that right now.


They have all the needed supplies at Home Depot :lol:

Where does that eventually drain to?


----------



## SGrabs33 (Feb 13, 2017)

Greendoc said:



> Why is there a ditch going through the middle of your back yard? If that needs to be a drain, I would make it a drain complete with channels with grates and pipe taking the water out of the yard. Otherwise, I would fill it in and make the lawn level.


Yep it's a ditch alright. It's supposed to move the water out of my yard and in between me and my neighbors yards. French drain would be ideal I guess. I wouldn't want grates in the middle of my yard but I guess that would be better than the water.


----------



## SGrabs33 (Feb 13, 2017)

ahartzell said:


> SGrabs33 said:
> 
> 
> > French drain is def an option. I just don't want to shell out the cash for that right now.
> ...


I did all of that edging a year or so ago. Digging another ditch doesn't sound like fun. It's draind in between me and my neighbors yard.


----------



## J_nick (Jan 28, 2017)

SGrabs33 said:


> Greendoc said:
> 
> 
> > Why is there a ditch going through the middle of your back yard? If that needs to be a drain, I would make it a drain complete with channels with grates and pipe taking the water out of the yard. Otherwise, I would fill it in and make the lawn level.
> ...


Do it how they do drainage on Golf greens. Dig a trench 18" deep along the bottom of the swale. Place a perforated pipe with a debris sock in the trench and cover with gravel followed by sand to get back to grade. There's quite a few YouTube videos explaining it 100x better than I just did.

A lot of modern greens can handle up to 25" of rain an hour!


----------



## J_nick (Jan 28, 2017)

As for manual labor, MQ lives close and will come help. He's a great ditch digger and will even hump that dirt to the curb for ya!


----------



## SGrabs33 (Feb 13, 2017)

J_nick said:


> As for manual labor, MQ lives close and will come help. He's a great ditch digger and will even hump that dirt to the curb for ya!


Nice of you to volunteer him :lol:

Do you or anyone think I would get steals some benefit from my pro plugger idea?


----------



## Greendoc (Mar 24, 2018)

If you used the plugger and filled the holes with sand all along that ditch, the water would have a place to drain down and then away. Not sure how much water it could carry away. I am with j_nick. Standing water after rain calls for a pipe system. If not the channel grate, a PGA style underground drain. I had to help one of my customers with a bad problem. The loose screw that graded his property sloped everything back towards his back door :shocked: I ended up installing a channel drain along the concrete patio that was then piped to the far end of the yard.


----------



## J_nick (Jan 28, 2017)

I'm sure the pro plugger couldn't hurt. I would almost like to go deeper than the foot pegs would allow like 12".

Do you have have pics of how the water exits your property? Looks like it hangs a left then follows the fence line?


----------



## SGrabs33 (Feb 13, 2017)

The swale is graded so the water slopes out of my yard and between the houses.

Water flows from the bottom of the pic to the top:


@ the end of the swale is this. The black drain from my downspouts I installed 2 years ago is also there:


Then it all flows between the houses and to the street. This area is terrible. Soaked all the time for a week + after rains because of my water flow and also my neighbors French drain drains here also.


----------



## w0lfe (Mar 19, 2018)

Man I understand the frustration completely. My front yard is probably worse than this, and causes my driveway to flood. To make it worse, that part of my driveway and yard aren't high enough to drain to the street


----------



## Reel Low Dad (Jun 1, 2017)

I was able to eliminate a swale that ran through backyard by installing a drain at the beginning and piping it down to the other swale that runs through my backyard and comes out via a pop up emitter. I wasn't sure how it would work but with the rain we have had so far this spring, one day over 2 inches, it works great and the area used to be a soggy mush is now firm. Looking at your new pics, I assume the swale in the back goes to the side yard and then to the sidewalk? With your yard on the left with the stepping stones?


----------



## SGrabs33 (Feb 13, 2017)

Fistertondeluxe said:


> Looking at your new pics, I assume the swale in the back goes to the side yard and then to the sidewalk? With your yard on the left with the stepping stones?


Yep, that's it exactly.

I definitely saw improvement after burying my downspouts and getting that water out of the yard. But now it's just the fact that anything that falls in my yard goes to that swale.


----------



## csbutler (Jun 15, 2017)

I feel you pain this was my situation before I put in a drain along my back swale.







Atleast you have a pretty defined swale. The builder did a pretty terrible job on mine. I had to put in a gravel drain along the entire back of my yard and along one side of my fence. The water behind my house would sit for about 2-3 days but the water along my fence would sit for a week plus. Along my fence the front yard is higher than the back. Before the builder graded the house next to me it was fine but as soon as they graded it I took 100% of the swale and 100% of their water.

The day after I put my drain in it rained pretty much all day and within 30 minutes after it stopped I had no puddles.


----------



## SGrabs33 (Feb 13, 2017)

@csbutler Oh wow, mine has never been that bad. It's a shame that the builders do this to us.

Seems like a French drain is the best option :/


----------



## csbutler (Jun 15, 2017)

It's a pain but I'm happy I did it.


----------



## Mightyquinn (Jan 31, 2017)

SGrabs33 said:


> J_nick said:
> 
> 
> > As for manual labor, MQ lives close and will come help. He's a great ditch digger and will even hump that dirt to the curb for ya!
> ...


Seriously, if you need help with this project I would be more than happy to help out one weekend. You can rent a trencher from Home Depot and we can knock it out. I would recommend putting a french drain it the swale and down the side of the house with a pop up emitter at the sidewalk. Talk to your neighbor and see if he will let you tie his downspouts into the drain? :thumbup:


----------



## SGrabs33 (Feb 13, 2017)

@Mightyquinn I really appreciate the offer MQ. I need to decide if that's a project that I want to tackle this year. Hard to find a weekend to do it all and I was hoping that the proplugger idea would give me some relief because I can do that @ night when the fam is asleep. Haha

My neighbor did exactly what you recommended last year but failed to run the pipe to the edge of the sidewalk. His ends right at the edge of my fence, basically the bottom right of my third picture. So that's a swap there now :thumbup:


----------



## Colonel K0rn (Jul 4, 2017)

SGrabs33 said:


> @Mightyquinn I really appreciate the offer MQ. I need to decide if that's a project that I want to tackle this year. Hard to find a weekend to do it all and I was hoping that the proplugger idea would give me some relief because I can do that @ night when the fam is asleep. Haha
> 
> My neighbor did exactly what you recommended last year but failed to run the pipe to the edge of the sidewalk. His ends right at the edge of my fence, basically the bottom right of my third picture. So that's a swap there now :thumbup:


See if he'd cover the materials, and you and MQ do the labor. If you're going to put in the drain in the back, I'd recommend that you go with the EZ drain (the type that has the aggregate in the sock)so all you have to do is dig the trench, lay in the sock, and backfill. This way you don't have to worry about loose gravel in the yard that you know your reel is going to find. This is something that you could easily get done in a few hours with a trencher and a few shovels. I love the flagstone and mulch that you have on that shared misery side of the house.


----------



## Mightyquinn (Jan 31, 2017)

Colonel K0rn said:


> SGrabs33 said:
> 
> 
> > @Mightyquinn I really appreciate the offer MQ. I need to decide if that's a project that I want to tackle this year. Hard to find a weekend to do it all and I was hoping that the proplugger idea would give me some relief because I can do that @ night when the fam is asleep. Haha
> ...


That's a good point CK with using the EZ drain but if I am there helping, I can guarantee there wouldn't be any gravel on the lawn when we were done :thumbup:

I was thinking of if he would need to add a catch basin or two to help with the surface water in the swale as I think it would help "dry" the area faster. Oh you would definitely want to call 811 before any of this too so you know where all your utilities are located.


----------



## SGrabs33 (Feb 13, 2017)

Had about 3/4 inch rain so far today.


----------



## SCGrassMan (Dec 17, 2017)

Just FYI, you don't have to look AT the French drain. Inbetween mine and my neighbors yard there was one of those, inside of a 6-12" depression about 10 feet by 30 feet. I put down 6" of drainage gravel, drainage fabric (NOT landscaping fabric), and then 6" of masonry sand. Directly over the drain. And we had two weeks last summer where it rained every day, sometimes several inches a day. I never saw so much as a puddle out there.


----------



## Colonel K0rn (Jul 4, 2017)

Mightyquinn said:


> Colonel K0rn said:
> 
> 
> > SGrabs33 said:
> ...


The catch basin wouldn't really be needed for the surface water, since the EZFlo has the aggregate(peanuts) around it to allow infiltration of the water from the surface into the pipe, and the pipe to carry the drain water to the discharge. I would, however put some atrium catch basins at the end to allow infiltration in the mulch beds. Water could easily enter the drain pipe the length of the trench across the swale, and be carried away to the street, or wherever you direct it. After watching this video, if I had to install a french drain, there's no question in my mind which method I would choose to use for installation.


----------



## Mightyquinn (Jan 31, 2017)

My thinking behind using a catch basin would be that it would help drain the yard faster as it would pick up the water coming from the hill and the neighbors yard as you wouldn't have to wait for it to percolate down to the pipe.


----------



## SGrabs33 (Feb 13, 2017)

I'd likely need to put catch basins at each of the low points of my edging. Those two spots hold water too :/


----------



## Colonel K0rn (Jul 4, 2017)

You could go with a channel drain there. And if I still lived in NC, I wouldn't mind helping, but alas, I'm 5 hours away. On a good note, the ground should be plenty soft to dig up.


----------



## Steverino (Dec 14, 2017)

I'd be glad to help out. I'm close by in Holly Springs...


----------



## VALawnNoob (Jun 9, 2020)

Sorry for digging old thread back from the dead but I'm curious @SGrabs33 how did turned out? My backyard is not as bad as you but I have an exit spout to the middle that is sitting and keeping lawn wet instead of exiting. I was thinking exactly like you about the proplugger idea and fill it back with sand. Did you ever try this?


----------



## SGrabs33 (Feb 13, 2017)

VALawnNoob said:


> Sorry for digging old thread back from the dead but I'm curious @SGrabs33 how did turned out? My backyard is not as bad as you but I have an exit spout to the middle that is sitting and keeping lawn wet instead of exiting. I was thinking exactly like you about the proplugger idea and fill it back with sand. Did you ever try this?


I did try it out but not to the extreme of multiple holes side by side. Just maybe 20 down the strip of the worst part. I didn't see too much improvement. I've had a few companies come and give me quotes for French drains. Most of them have said that I should put a surface drain in which I don't really want to do.


----------



## VALawnNoob (Jun 9, 2020)

i'm thinking about 3 holes side by side some with sand and some with compost and the last with small rocks/pebbles
did you try any wetting agents like Penterra? how about Air8?

an alternative route would be slit trench filled with sand. I was going to try it w/ an edger and see if the water will find a way to escape down the slope


----------

