I just came in from surveying the situation and have come to a hard realization: the path of least resistance isn’t to dig more ditches and install more French drains. It’s to get an excavator back there, dig swales along the sides of my property, sending water to the back of the yard, and have my backyard crowned high in the center, like roadways are. In the very back have a third swale pitched downhill to send the water from both swales into the woods. Sounds good in theory except that to do all that, I’d have to move my shed (which I’m moving anyway) but also about 14-15 cords of firewood Maybe next year....
I'd say it's about 50% better. I need to a couple swales and bring in material to raise the low spots where water collects, but all in all I'm well on my way.
Here’s what I’m dealing with in back end of my property. I dug this shallow trench as a test and it’s been flowing almost constantly for a couple weeks. Sometimes a trickle, other times a torrent. Unfortunately the direction I made these woodpiles isn’t helping. I’ll have to relocate them, consolidate my hoard better, and put in a couple swales. At least I know what I’ve got to do...
Alright guys, you’ve twisted my arm enough today. I continued my Bandaid-fix trench around the woodpiles and towards the far corner of the property. For only being a couple inches deep it’s flowing really well. The water seems to be dissipating well into the ground over where the trench spills out. Later today we’re supposed to get some more serious rain so that’ll be a good test.
I'm on board with a gtg if it makes sense to do so. I bet a handful of folks could move 15 cord kinda handily... Sca
Wow... Does everything just drain down hill from your house then? Thats quite the little flow channel. Kinda of like my house from the road backwards everything flows. The only part that I had issues with was when I had a garden where my wood pile is currently at. But it would wash out the part of the garden. I took the middle plow and my GT and cut a water way and the displaced dirt went on the back side as a levy. Its worked good for years..
Yes there’s about a half acre of woods adjacent to me that’s owned by the water company, and that’s where I’m directing all the water. My house is on a long hill so I get rainwater barreling through my backyard coming from way up above me. When it rains hard or for extended periods, it’ll flow steady for days. This year has been especially bad since we’ve had an extremely wet season. It doesn’t help that in certain parts of the yard I have heavy clay soil. The ground can only soak up so much.
Reading this thread has really given me some great ideas that i can do on certain problem areas of my property Thanks!!
This guy is out of Michigan and has some very thorough informative content. He explains in detail things to avoid and practices that are proven over the years. I soaked up a ton of information from his videos. https://www.youtube.com/c/FRENCHDRAINMAN
Cool video! Gives some really good info Gives me a few more pieces of the puzzle to control runoff from my shop roof Being on sandy soil it usually clears up quickly, but with a 50x80 shop roof to drain off it dumps alot of water! I have a ag drain tile manufacturer locally that I could possibly buy direct, I'm thinking it should work, that blue stuff looks a bit spendy
Yeah burying the downspouts and diverting roof runoff is the cat's meow. Agreed that the French Drain Man is at the end of the day a salesman, so he's trying to promote a product. That's exactly why I bought my material off Craigslist and didn't spend upwards of $1,000 on my project. But at least there's some solid information to go by in the videos to get you started.
2 years later and I’m still playing in the mud back here. I got all my stacks moved to one side of the yard and now I have a clear shot to divert the water into the woods. Today’s heavy rains got me motivated about this again. For now the shallow trench is helping, but eventually I’ll need to make it into a real swale that I can run the mower over. The French drain section with the riprap is still working as designed though.
I saw the radar this morning and your area was getting it good. Mother nature can be a b!tch sometimes.
