csweihe

I had a lake in my yard every spring and every storm. My house was moved onto the lot 50 years after all other builds. lt settled last on the block. I had water from across the alley, and next door. It would bury 2 out 3 steps to the back door and was about 30 ft in diameter. There was a current with little white caps when the wind blew. I cried the first year I saw this. I couldn't believe it.

I solved the problem by observing how the water entered my yard and thereby building a berm wall running the length of my lot. I also raised the drip edge with gravel about 6 inches.

important factors: My neighbor agreed to this! I left a "culvert", so to speak, that would direct the water to the street in front of the house. My berm is not level with or higher than my neighbor's yard.The culvert is wide enough to mow and away from my drip line.

I also planted lilacs, dogwood, snow berries, and miniature pine trees on the berm to help absorb water and hold the dirt in place with a root structure.

I've been dry for 3 years. It was considerably less than the 6 grand quote for a drain tile. I hired a friend's husband to do heavy work, cost me about 1,800.

TEmpRandomGuyMustSignUp

I had flooding in my side-yard and the "hole" / dry-well remedy didn't work at all. When it rained, a puddle about 6' wide by 10' long formed, with about 2" of water in it, on top of our undeveloped side yard (new house). I went on the internet and found that the easiest and cheapest solution was digging 4' holes like was recommended here. So I did it at the lowest point of the puddle (once it had dried out of course). And having left over energy that day, and wanting to avoid doing other obligations, I went on to dig 4 more holes, for a total of 5, 4-foot deep (aprx 2' diameter) holes.

I looked at my holes and was so proud of myself. Then the next Oregon rain hit, and it wasn't even a heavy one. And guess what? 4 of the holes filled up to the top and REFUSED TO DRAIN. To my amazement, they refused to drain even an inch for over 48 hours. I don't know how long it would have taken them to drain completely, because I pumped the water out.

The culprit: compressed, already wet (spring), super-heavy clay soil. So didn't work for me, had to fill holes in and do French drain instead. What perplexes me to this day, though, is that one hole (and they were all within 3' of each other, max) drained INSTANTLY and COMPLETELY and even looked dry after the rains. ??? That was like the "magic" hole or something. Still don't know what the difference was.