You don't have to be an expert to find where the water is coming from if you
know that your neighbors' yards are higher than yours. It's coming from
surface water (through or under the grass) and your neighbors' subsurface
drainage system. You could haul in topsoil near the house so that the water
doesn't settle around the foundation. Grade the soil downhill from the back
of your house.

It sounds as if you could benefit from a subsurface drainage system
yourself. I did a DIY project using PVC pipe and catch basins. In my case,
I was able to tie in the city's street drainage system (not sanitary
system). You must be able to have about 1/4 inch fall per 10 feet for the
system to drain effectively. That's where the additional topsoil might work
for you. From your post, it sounds as if you may have to drain your
backyard around the house and across the front yard if that's the natural
downward grade.

French drains can work too. I put in a French drain on the property line
between my neighbor and me to drain water past a tree, which had formed a
natural berm over the years. (Cutting tree roots are the worst part; and be
sure to get permission from your neighbor if you are cutting *his* tree
roots. There's a chance it could damage the tree.)

Regards,

Joe Morris

Please remove ZAP to email me.

"Timothy" wrote in message
news
On Mon, 09 Jun 2003 17:25:32 -0400, Billy wrote:

I'm not sure of what I need yet, because I do not understand how the
water
is arriving to my property - I mean does water travel beneath the ground
and seep upward and downward or does it "ride" along the surface? If you
have a site that explains how water collects and travels, I would be
very
happy to research, because I think that I need to be completely
determine
this before I attempt the drainage installations.

I ask the above question because I do not see the water actually flowing
into my yard from the other property in all places where my yard floods.
I
would suppose that the only way for water from one yard to arrive into
my
yard is from rainfall flowing down the dirt and lawn unless there was an
underground spring pushing water upward, correct? Is this how water
normally travels from yards...moving across and down the *surface* of
the
lawn and dirt? If this is true, how does an *underground* french drain
pipe collect water from the *surface* flooding? Additionally, the drain
would need to be graded (since it relies on gravity) rather than lye
flat
toward the place it empties to be effective, right?

I'm going to look at french and curtain drain searches on Google.
Thanks!


Finding the source of the water is nessasary, but it may be the job of a
trained hydrologist to source it correctly. Seing as you don't have a
history of the problem due to you just buying the place, ask the neighbors
if they have noticed a small pond in your back yard before.

There are a few ways the water could of gotten there. There's run off,
generaly from roofs, drive ways and other hard surfaces. There's over
saturation of the soil. When this happens, water percolates through the
soil untill it hits a soil structure it can't move through it. Then
gravity pulls it along (if there is grade ofcourse). Then there's the
dreaded spring.

What you need to figure out.
What type of soil you have. Is it clay based? How far can you easily dig
down, 2, 3, 4 feet? Could the top layer of your soil be compacted from
heavy machines from the past?

My opinion....
I would gander to say that your neighbors have piped their run off in your
direction as your the low spot. I would also guess that your soil is a
high clay soil and if you was to dig down a few feet you would see that it
gets hard to dig. As the yards above you 'fill' up there soil's water
holding ability, it percolates through the soil via gravity to the common
low spot... your yard.

I see this alot here in the pnw. When you have 3 neighbors with 2000
square foot roofs that drain all to the same common area.... ug what a
mess. After 2 days of on and off rain and the common area starts to
puddle.

Here's a link from my daughters science paper that talks about hydrology.

http://www.geog.ouc.bc.ca/physgeog/c.../chapter8.html

Good luck draining your swamp.....

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Bellingham, Washington
Georgia straits area
Zone 8a usda