# Puddles, puddles, puddles! How can I fix this?



## KarmicDebt (Jul 12, 2018)

I have learned a lot since My Spring Renovation so I decided to kill my lawn and start over with a high quality Perennial Ryegrass. My neighbors lawn is in bad shape with several weed grasses right on the border between our yards. Her husband recently passed away, so I offered to kill hers too and re-seed along with mine.

I knew the side of my house next to hers had some drainage issues, but I figured it was purely on my side as things would get pretty soggy if I let the sprinkler run too long. When I initially did the renovation this side had a lot of moss, and the layer of moss that I killed, but never completely removed seemed to act as a barrier, preventing water from draining. I decided to do something creative. I would use a pro plugger to create lots of holes and then I would top dress with a healthy mix of topsoil and compost.



At one end, the plugs that came up were clay. As I progressed toward the other end, I got a mix of sand and clay. However, the very top was clearly not allowing water to drain.



I Didn't stop until I had holes within 1-2 inches apart along the entire side, then I top dressed and finally, I tilled to soil to ensure I had a good mix of soil for the top 6-8 inches.

Next I killed both lawns with glyphosate, waited a week and re-treated. Eventually, I top dressed both lawns with the top soil/compost mix as well.

Over the following days, we either had lots of rain, or I had my sprinkler running; trying to keep the soil damp. The hill on the side of the house is still holding water longer than I would like, but it's clearly improved. Now that the neighbors lawn is covered with soil, it's clear she shared a substantial amount of the drainage problem:





Curious what others would recommend here. Do we need a French drain? I am tempted dig a deep, narrow ditch where my hill meets her property line and add fabric, followed by drainage rock to give the extra water somewhere to go.


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## KarmicDebt (Jul 12, 2018)

Looking forward to getting back to this:


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## g-man (Jun 15, 2017)

@KarmicDebt I'm moving this to the landscape area.

I think you should get PVC and channel the downspout to the street. When you do that use two PVC pipes (for you and your neighbor). That will take care of most of the rain water. Lastly use the same channel to bury the pipes and make it a drain. You could also try a Spartan system


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## jjepeto (Jan 27, 2019)

g-man said:


> @KarmicDebt I'm moving this to the landscape area.
> 
> I think you should get PVC and channel the downspout to the street. When you do that use two PVC pipes (for you and your neighbor). That will take care of most of the rain water. Lastly use the same channel to bury the pipes and make it a drain. You could also try a Spartan system


This is exactly what I did with a similar problem. Although, I used the solid black corrugated pipe without perforations, which is important when you're removing surface water. The perforated type is for collecting water that's already underground and moving it out. My street already has holes cored in the curb and allow everyone on the street to dump their surface water onto the street to go into the storm drains. Some municipalities don't allow this. In that case I would use solid pvc pipe, run to a pop up emitter near the mulch area with the trees in it. From there it should drain to the street or get absorbed by that bed. I would do this work before trying to get seed established.

When I got my downspouts underground it greatly reduced the amount of surface water I had on my side yard, which slopes toward the paver path and steps to the house, where it would never drain. If you think about the area of the roof that's draining to your side yards, you end up with lots of water, way more than the soil can absorb.


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## KarmicDebt (Jul 12, 2018)

g-man said:


> @KarmicDebt I'm moving this to the landscape area.
> 
> I think you should get PVC and channel the downspout to the street. When you do that use two PVC pipes (for you and your neighbor). That will take care of most of the rain water. Lastly use the same channel to bury the pipes and make it a drain. You could also try a Spartan system


Sounds like you're suggesting something like this:



I am wondering if that will be sufficient. Wondering if I might need something more like this:



Thoughts?


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## KarmicDebt (Jul 12, 2018)

jjepeto said:


> g-man said:
> 
> 
> > @KarmicDebt I'm moving this to the landscape area.
> ...


Can you explain why I need black corrugated pipe? I see a lot of pictures of "professional installations" using PVC.


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## jjepeto (Jan 27, 2019)

@KarmicDebt you don't need one or the other. I used it because I find it cheaper and easier to work with. You can get corrugated or PVC both with or without holes/perforations. Whichever you choose, it should be solid without holes if you're moving above ground water to a different location via underground pipe.


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## g-man (Jun 15, 2017)

Option 1 from your image. I don't think you need option 2. With option one, place sand/gravel around the PVC pipe and use that as a French drain system.

I prefer PVC over corrugated. The corrugated has a spot to collect dirt/leaves.


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## SCGrassMan (Dec 17, 2017)

Agreed with the above and to elaborate - if your water is coming mainly from downspouts, send the water from the downspouts out to the street. If it's mostly from the sprinklers and rain on that area, you'd want more of a French drain type situation.

If you go the French drain route, dig at least 12" down, use a 6" pipe and not a 4", and backfill with course gravel and then some landscape fabric and then sand.


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## KarmicDebt (Jul 12, 2018)

Thanks for the advice everyone. I will follow-up with a post describing what I did once I have the problem solved.


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## ErosionWizard (Apr 7, 2019)

@KarmicDebt Even if you do all the dirt work..... You still may want to treat the soil a bit. Most of that trouble could be greatly improved by helping your overall soil structure. I would diffently try Gypsum and than PeneGator after that. Both of those will help open up the soil and help with water and air flow, both in and out.

It probably would even get you faster results if you do what I said after you have all those nice holes. That will allow the materials to get don in your soil and work even faster.

Best of luck with whatever you end up doing.


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