Considering that I'm a member here the title may not be saying much.

Maybe I'm just too close to the problem so I'll pick your minds on this.

Lake Kevin Abatement has reached Phase II. I'm making progress on the back yard flood control. I need a good way to terminate my pump discharge line at the sidewalk out front. My pump drains 5 residential lots.

What is the best long term cost effective surface discharge? I'd prefer something more attractive than the PVC pipe laying on the grass.

Idea killers:
French drain will not work. Flooded area is lower than the discharge area.
2" diameter discharge will flow so fast it will strip away vegetation and soil.
I do not have available power to add a second discharge pump at the sidewalk.
Leach field is not an option.
Dry well is not an option.
Soil expansion and contraction means lots of ground movement.

Here's the current setup:

43 gallon per minute pump with two inch discharge pipe.
Pump is on the back wall of the shop.
Pump discharge pipe lays on the surface.
2" PVC pipe makes the corner at the back of the house and runs 25 feet with a rise of a few inches before transitioning to 3" pipe for the slight downhill run out.
Step up in pipe size for the downhill portion eases the load on the pump.
3" pipe grate will flow as much as a 2" open pipe and still acts as a barrier for small critters.
Discharge pipe runs 8 feet sideways then 97 feet to the sidewalk.

Here's the constraints:

Back yard is lower than the street.
Curb on the street is 4" tall.
Sidewalk before the curb is 2" thick.
Low discharge at curb means street water would backflow into my discharge line.
Front lawn is flat and level with the sidewalk.
Shallow elevation change means an underground pipe with a surface discharge has a lot of water filled pipe when flow stops.
Black clay turns to gumbo mud when wet so complete evacuation is desired.



The attached photo shows the known drain area. Yellow oval is the pump location. White discharge pipe can be seen leading to the sidewalk. The portion not seen in the photo is drawn in yellow.

Here's a view of the discharge line and discharge.

What's in the back yards of these 4 houses? Is bringing in sandy soil to raise the lake floor an option?

Look into a one way valve / back flow prevention unit to prevent possible back flow from the street.

I know foundation settlement due to soil volume change with varying soil moisture is a big problem in Texas areas,
as is large scale ground settlement due to groundwater pumping.

Approximately where on your street is the first street stormwater drain, and is there a buried stormwater drain pipe on your side?

Do you have any legal liability worries about how the drain discharge is going across the public sidewalk?

In FL, NC and KY I believe authorities would order me to
cut into my driveway and route the discharge pipe underneath the pavement
so that the water pipe discharge exits onto the street from the edge of the driveway in a downhill street direction,
although many places would require the water to be professionally connected straight down to the buried storm drain pipe,
which hopefully is under your side of the street.

How are you presently handling your roof gutter downspout discharges?
Is that roof rainwater discharge eventually finding its way through soil into the well so that it too is pumped through your system?

I'm more curious who feels they are in the select group of "the greatest minds on Moparts".

I'm not paying to landscape 6 houses.

I can't get under the sidewalk and out the curb without leaving a low spot in the pipe. The opening would be prone to plugging from debris, some of which could be pushed up against the back flow valve and hold it closed.

HA! No storm drains on my street. Water must run past two more homes and turn a corner to find a storm drain.



The city did not mention any since that is supposed to be the natural path of flow.



I am installing catch basins under the downspouts and routing them to the pump.


Once I get a stand alone electric service to my shop I'll have the power to add a second yard pump on the other side of the house to handle flow over there.

Install it at the curb.

That way if it is blocked for any reason, you can clear it from the end.

Thinking of a different angle, but can you donate/trade/sell the water off to a local farmer or ?? Pump the water into a big tank and they could come get it.

The top of the sidewalk is slightly lower than the curb so you have to start at least two inches down.

Not much room to work with.

Unique idea. However, the DFW metroplex is roughly the size of New Hampshire and I live smack dab in the middle of it. It takes an hour or more to drive to farm/ranch land and I don't have room for water storage.

We'd be really hootched if a tank that big sprang a leak.

After a 45 minute storm my pump ran for a solid 5 hours. That's not counting the cycle times before it was overrun and after it caught up. That 5 hours equates to over 13,000 gallons of water.

The middle of our block where our house is WAS the low spot. We asked the city for help. They said it was a "landscaping problem". I SHOWED THEM what a landscaping problem was and raised our yard 2 FEET. That was expensive and a BUNCH of trucks! Now the neighbors on each side have a lake a couple times a year. We asked if they wanted to "go in on it" to disperse the water equally. Guess who's kicking themselves.

"WATER ALWAYS WINS!" late Glenn Haege (home handyman radio show here in Detroit)

And we are gonna put an offer on a nice house on an island in the lake to the east of Detroit. An Army Corp of Engineers website has an online interactive map. It shows if water levels rise 2ft the whole island is underwater. Luckily the lake is at historic levels so I hope it can only get better not worse. At 58 if we can enjoy it for 20 years we'll do good

can you just fill your yard some and let the other neighbors worry about kevin?

The idea of catching and storing the water made me think of what a buddy did at his house.

He's rural and so there are no fire hydrants anywhere near his place.

He had a giant cistern (sp.) (aka underground water tank) built and built one of his patios over it.
All the downspouts and paved areas drain into it.
I think it hold something like 60,000 gallons and it's there for the fire department to drop a hose into if there's ever a fire.

Admittedly his house did cost millions to built, from what I've been told $14 million.

Storing water for watering plants for when there are drought is a thought.

I know it's had to think about droughts when you currently getting flooded.

The neighbors let their yards flood and it caused all sorts of problems.

I dumped $30,000 on home repairs a year ago, largely due to foundation issues. That was the second lift and repair in the last 20 years. Black clay is evil.

The neighbor behind me (white car in driveway) filled their yard. It now runs off into mine. I have a catch basin at the corner of their yard to deal with it. My other two catch basins are at the fence with the other neighbor behind me. She's elderly and I haven't see her in the back yard in more than 10 years. Her yard has standing water. It soaks through the clay and percolates up into my catch basins. I can actually watch the water bubble in.

It hasn't rained since yesterday afternoon and my pump is still cycling every few minutes to remove water leaching in from the clay.

Whew. That sounds like a real issue.

I have been looking at industrial buildings (was driving around looking today) and I'm HYPER sensitive to water issues. The epoxy coated floors in our current building that we spent thousands on have bubbled after 7 years from because of the hydraulic pressures of water trapped under the building. The industrial area must been built on a swap. If I see wild looking gutters, downspouts, cattails, standing water, I move on.

LOL, I was staying out of this thread until you commented!

Sell house.