On Sep 24, 5:35?pm, Pennyaline wrote:
Dave wrote:
Gonna piggyback, if you don't mind, Jennifer.

Me too, for the same reasons. Here in Northern Utah we get the same kind
of rains you do: none, until the semiannual "monsoons" come. Rains like
a *******! ****es down like mad, then it's gone. My garage, with a
sloping driveway fed by a rain gutter and lower lying than the
surrounding yard, would be overwhelmed if it hadn't been for the french
drain we had put in. It's just a shallow trench with a perforated pipe
as a drainway, the pipe surrounded by small rocks to keep it concealed
but allow for water to seep down. We put the french drain in a few
inches downhill of the downspout, and aimed it away and into nearby very
poorly placed storm drain (and I mean very poorly placed, six feet away
from the problem!) A french drain could solved your periodic problem.

Excellent advice. My house has a french drain, perforated clay pipe
buried in gravel at the footings all about the house perimeter, was
installed some 50 years ago. There's a drain at the lowest point of
my basement fitted with a cast concrete manifold box... all the
collected water (including the grey water from my water softener,
dehumidifier, and RO filter) drains to that point via hoses/tubes and
then is piped outside via orangeburg to a seasonal creek about 150
feet away and some ten feet lower downhill. This works just fine to
eliminate excessive ground water during late fall rains and spring
thaws. All I do is once a year check that the ball of hardwarer cloth
stuffed into the terminus of the orangeburg at the creek is still
there and hasn't washed out of the pipe, that's what keeps rodents and
snakes from traveling uphill into my basement drain... even though
there's a steel perforated plate covering the drain it's best to deter
intruders... my six cats would go nuts if they detected prey behind
that steel plate.

All four of my roof down spouts, one at each corner, go below ground
and are connected to an elbow about a foot below grade and then a
plastic pipe runs some 10-15 feet away from the house where it emerges
on the lawn and somewhat above grade of some trees that benefit from
the extra run off. If I had a driveway that was being inundated with
water from my roof during heavy rains and was backing up to the
foundation of my house due to improper pitch then I would pick some
spot whereas I could pipe that water to some lower point, even if I
had to tunnel under the drveway and install a culvert pipe... it's not
all that difficult to tunnel under a driveway whether blacktop,
concrete, or aggregate. A person could probably do this themself with
a high pressure washer, or contract with someone who specializes in
this sort of operation. I had a rental house where the municipal
water company's responsibility for pipe ended at the curb, where the
meter was inside a small pit. The pipe from the curbside meter to the
house was the homeowners responsibility. One day I got a call from my
tenant that their water bill for the quarter was like $900... up from
the usual $150 bill. The pipe to the house had burst under ground.
The water company recommended a fellow who speciallized in blasting a
new tunnel with high pressure water. He made the new tunnel (some 40
feet) and in conjunction with the water company installed the new
piping for like $500, this was some 10 years ago. Also I was able to
negotiate with the water company to cut thst $900 water bill in
half... the tenant paid $150 and I paid the balance, naturally I paid
for trhe repair too. I was amazed with how accurately they could
tunnel with high pressure water.