Feel free to DM me for more specifics. In that scenario I think if nothing else the city could pressure the commercial buildings into resolving their piece and then could re-evaluate after that.

Like most things with the city they seem genuinely willing to help if you can get in front of the right people. We took pictures down to city hall and they quickly got on board following that

We have this issue and it’s compounded by commercial buildings that run up against our yard straight up dumping their rain into our yard. Kind of curious how you got the city to fix it.

Nice folks, someone might try to talk your ear off. The money goes to a good cause too.

Gotta love that Virginia soil, so damn hard you can bounce your shovel off it

> Some of those houses were upwards of 900k in the fall which blew my mind, so I hope it’s solid builder.

Those are for Lifestyle/Legault/some other builder I can't remember the name of off that do million dollar homes. It's in a different section north of the main community.

That's invite only and they verify whether or not you're either in the community or are under contract with a builder.

Worked with them on the building side, not as a buyer. Pretty middle of the road for tract homes.

Do you mind sharing in what capacity you worked with those builders? Just depending on the area, may or may not be a top priority to OP.

Taking this as an opportunity to tell everyone that YOU NEED TO PUSH WATER AWAY FROM THE HOUSE AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE!

All your gutters should, at a minimum, have these cheap gutter extensions at the base:

https://www.lowes.com/pd/Spectra-Universal-Downspout-Extension-White/1002865770

​

Just push water AWAY from house. You do not want thousands of gallons of water every year seeping into your foundation. It's a fun way to destroy your foundation, create horrible mold, or worse.

Your giant roof catches so much water and sends it down spouts... do you really want ALL that water going underneath your house / foundation?!

It's cheap. It's easy. I've seen so many houses not have even the cheapest one I linked above. They make nicer ones, they make better solutions, but at a minimum you gotta do something.

Water and houses should always be separated... preferably by a water proof pipe ha!

​

Fun note: Have a neighbor who has his downspout extension curving away from the house and he has it position directly into his neighbor's basement foundation crack. That's how I found out that neighbor hated the landlord neighbor next door lol

Ah, a fellow francophone

Perhaps add some rain barrels to collect rain and reuse it in watering flower bed and such during summer

Shit you must’ve had a culvert just dead end onto your property or something like that, glad they paid for it. Sounds like a nightmare

Oh that’s a bummer, these solutions can get really pricey with a pro, unfortunately I have no idea on that end but my guess is not less than $1500 for the most absolute basic tiny French drain (and your yard sounds complicated, sorry to say) I would contact your landlord because this work is beyond what you should be required to do.

In addition to a French drain, a dry well may be a helpful addition.

yeah it’s tough to decide what to do since i’m renting, but in charge of the yard work. I really am only trying to lower the pooling of water so that I can do things with my dog in the backyard without them being covered in mud / soaking wet. Thank you again.

I added a tip about how to quickly rule out someone trying to make a quick buck. To be clear a poorly installed French drain will work for a few years, it will just fail a lot faster without filter fabric.

It pools because it can't be absorbed into the ground and / or or can't flow anywhere else. You probably have very clayey soil since that is prevalent around here. Beyond that, your yard is either a low point, has nowhere to flow to, or both. Is everywhere around you a bit higher? Then you have the low point. If you can see somewhere lower, you might be able to help the water move there.

If you call around about this setup is called a French drain (even tho I prefer the term Freedom drain)

https://websoilsurvey.sc.egov.usda.gov/App/WebSoilSurvey.aspx

Use the soil survey to see what your soils. The data isn’t 100% accurate but a good start. Odds are you have clayey soils which are kind of like a sponge. They’ll absorb water but once saturated become impermeable.

Take a look around your yard, are your neighbors properties sloping to yours, do you have downspouts that are discharging in that area?

If your neighbors yards slope to yours, I don’t think you can just put a berm on the property line to dam it up. So you need to collect the water and discharge it somewhere. Yard inlets can be bought at Home Depot and are effective, but you need to pipe it somewhere. If your yard slopes to the street or somwhere you can “daylight” a pipe, that’s ideal. But if you’re like me and have a flat or even low lying yard, you’ll need to do a dry well, which is just a hole in the ground with a fabric liner to keep the soil particles out, and an open graded gravel like #57 stone. Run the pipe to that and the water goes through the stone and permeates into the soil. If you have clayey soils the dry well will need to be pretty big which is why daylighting is preferred. Or if you did down and find you have sandy material, that had a higher permeability and will drain faster.

Edit: when was the last time you aerated your yard? Every time it rains or snows or you walk on your yard, it gets compacted. Before you go digging up your yard, try aerating it so it can open up and breathe. You can even mix in organic material to improve permeability (I’ve never done that so can’t speak on its effectiveness)

Have some experience with this - Ultimately it comes down to how much water is pooling and what grade you have to work with in your yard. If it's not a lot of water, and you have some grade in your yard french drains will fix the spot pooling.

If it's a bigger issue and/or you don't have enough grade to move the water then it gets stickier. Most places will give free estimates so worth talking through with them and then can weigh the cost vs. doing it yourself.

My issue was so bad the city ultimately resolved it - Kudos to them as it was free vs. $$$ that private companies were looking to charge, with no guarantee it would actually resolve the issue.

thanks for all the information. Gives me a lot to work off of moving forward in terms of research.

Our back yard—which is on a slope towards the back that sheds the surface water off our yard—is also heavy on clay soil and would make the spongy sound when you walked on it a day or two after a rain shower.

Once we started having it aerated every fall, that reduced most of the spongy sound since the water got deeper into the ground and more loose leaf/grass cuttings got into it.

That might be the cheapest/fastest route you could take. If you’re physically able to do it yourself, rent an aerator from HD and give it a pass. Otherwise, a lawn maintenance person/company can do this for you for a fee.

Regardless of who does it, make sure to walk around your yard and mark any solid things on or near the surface (exposed roots, trunks, sprinklers, rocks, etc.) in the ground that you’re aware of otherwise the aerator will buck on you if it hits it.

There is an industry. It sounds like you may need some French drains installed. It’s incredibly common because much of the soil around here is clay.

You can learn to do this yourself, it’s not very challenging but it is dirty and physically taxing. To be successful you will need to be able to solidly assess the grade of your lawn and see where the drain should empty. It will definitely be easier to call a pro.

If you want to go all out and tear up your whole backyard, you can have it regraded. You’ll very likely still need a French drain after regrading. Depending on your yard, you may be able to get away with a rain garden or dry creek bed. There’s a lot of options (with a range of prices and visual outcomes) but it will come down to your yard and your budget.

A hardscaper will definitely be able to do this, a landscaper will likely be able to as well.

If you are seeing strange wet patches when it has not rained, you probably have a leak in your irrigation system.

Edit: wait, I’ve dug up a ton of poorly installed French drains. A French drain must be wrapped in geotextile or it will fill up with sediment much faster (French drains will fail eventually when this occurs). Ask how a French drain is installed. If they don’t mention geotextile/non woven soil filter fabric, ask about it. (“How do we prevent it from filling up with dirt that washes in over time? Is there some kind of filter fabric to prevent that?”) If they tell you it’s not necessary, thank them for their time and call the next person.

on it! Dock Street Pump Station is in need of some TLC and maintenance and our team is working on a fix now!

You may have very clayey soils. My neighbor back in CT had the same problem. He and his son dug up trenches and filled them with stone and perforated drainage pipe. You could reach out to a smaller engineering company or landscape company to take a look and do the work.

Sounds like you have no perc. Which means your yard is very clay-y and doesn't absorb easily. Grading (filling low spots and sloping the land to drain away) might help.

How close are the puddles to the house? Sometimes adding tubes to extend your downspouts away from the house can help get the water farther away, but then you have tubes on the surface. You can also add buried tubes, but that's a lot of digging, and they need to drain to daylight somewhere, and in a flat yard that can be hard to do.