What home improvement work did you do today?

First one is simple. Build a higher garden on your side and slope it towards the neighbors. While you're at it, put your sump pump hose in it.



Otherwise, a French Drain might work from the back to the front. Drain your sump pump into it. The French Drains around here pretty much just breed mosquitos though. Yours would probably be infested with polar bears or arctic wolves.

 

One last dude on our block holding onto his buried curbside discharge with all his might until he's forced to get work that requires him to bring it up to code. Until then he creates an ice patch by the curb the length of the block in heavy freeze/thaw cycles.

Then if you don't want to do a fancy drainage system it's the least bad of a bunch of undesirable options putting the water onto different spots on your lawn and growing small rain forest after every rain. One house perforated a stretch of their above ground PVC discharge pipe so the discharge is less concentrated, something I might tinker with.

 

I'd need a dump truck load or more of dirt to bring my yard above the neighbors. They're a good 6" above my low point.

My front yard slopes in the opposite direction with the high point being midway along the side yard. I don't think a french drain back to front would work

If I lived on more of a side street with less visibility, I'd totally run a hose under the grass and discharge it into the gutter.

 

Finally, some pics of a lawn that looks just as bad as mine.

 

Anything from here the that might work? https://www.familyhandyman.com/project/how-to-achieve-better-yard-drainage/

 

It looks better in summer. At least the front. Lol. I eventually want to do a.broadleaf spray and re-seed.

 

I actually kind of like that rain garden idea.

 

That'd look pretty cool.

 

The struggle is real, the greenest part of my lawn is the Moss.

 

I have clay less than 6" down though. There's not really anywhere for the water to drain to.

 

I have clover and dandelion infestations.

 

https://homeguides.sfgate.com/drain-heavy-clay-yards-54529.html

There's a part in there about some crap you can add to your clay soil to make it more permeable. I'd probably build up the yard in that area with tiered gardens and push the water back towards the neighbors.

We have water coming from our alley and both of the neighbors yards drain into ours - or they did (I have elevated flower gardens on one side). We ended up having our yard sloped and put in a ditch on one side and the other side drains through a driveway we had put in.

 

Or dig a massive pit and bury a perforated cistern in there and backfill the hole with large river rock. Lay down geofabric over the whole thing about 8-12” below the surface, cover with top soil, and replant. Basically creating a hidden underground version of a retention pond that can slowly dissipate the water in the drier weather. Like a French drain on steroids

*I’m not a civil engineer and have no idea what I’m talking about.

 

What's the sump pump for, crawlspace? Do you keep the hose out year round?

 

No crawlspace, my house actually has a sump which is below the basement floor. Water flows into it from around the foundation especially in spring during the thaw. I leave the hose on from April until roughly October when things start to freeze up

 

Interesting, it was built that way on purpose?
I don't think I've ever seen a finished basement with a sump pump

 

It's an unfinished basement, but it's 50% below ground 50% above. I think it's called a daylight basement. Sump pumps are super common here, almost every house has one. Part of being built on what's basically swamp with extreme freeze and thaw cycles.

 

Gotcha, do you have a high sump alarm?

 

Yep.

and gators. I think @ToyoMafia can hook me up with some of those.

 

Fine. I need one of those too then. Home renos are getting expensive...

 

Might as well add a 12v sump pump for power outages while you're at it.

 

Or, a Generac whole-house generator.

 

I have an adapeter somewhere around here that lets me hook it up to one of my deep cycle trollig motor batteries.

 

…. might as well make the moat “Lazy River” style for summer fun

 

Pretty common in the midwest

 

We have houses with them in the Northeast. Under ground water table can be an issue in areas, it's not just about the basement flooding. Deep basement with high water table needs a pump. In rain the water in my sump pit rises as outside water is sinking into the ground around the house. It moves in under the house then makes the underground water rise, creating upward pressure on the foundation. The relief for it is that it rises up through the pit where when it gets high enough the pump purges it so it doesn't seep into the foundation elsewhere.

The pump activates regularly even with no flood in the basement.