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Robert Allison · 17-06-2007, 04:55 PM posted to austin.gardening

wrote:
Good morning everyone,

My honey and I are in the process of looking at houses.
In the learning process of looking one at potential homes, one of the
issues that came up with buying a home is drainage.
We went to see a particular house and it was in good shape , but
noticed that there was a large pond, created by the recent rain.
I have a couple of questions here about that.
1. Where or to whom would a home owner go to about property drainage?

The most capable professional to deal with drainage issues is
a civil engineer. These are the guys that design site plans
and deal with drainage issues, design retention ponds, etc.
You may or may not need one, depending upon how large your
drainage issues are, where your potential property is, and how
much runoff you are talking about.

Many times, a landscape architect can solve many problems with
drainage. They are much less expensive than a civil eng. and
may be all you need.

You can do it yourself with a bit of guidance.

2. How expensive is it to generally rectify such issues?

If you have to have a civil eng., then the initial site survey
and plans will be in the $1,000 to $5,000 range and can be
more if you have 50 acres or so. With a city lot, the above
range would be accurate. Actual construction of drainage
devices would depend upon what the engineer designs as a solution.

Landscaping could be much less.

Doing it yourself could be a lot less.

3. If I get rid of drainage on my property where does the water go?

Legally it has to go where it goes now, or to a public
drainage system such as storm drains or street gutters that
lead to storm drains.

and if it goes to my neighbors can I be sued ?

You are not allowed to redirect runoff onto a neighbors
property or any other private property (and in some cases
public property) without express written consent of the
landowner.

I tried looking on line but got a bit confused by the searches I
found.

Thank you for your help.

--
Robert Allison
Rimshot, Inc.
Georgetown, TX