Need help from the greatest minds on Moparts

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.

How about building a low rock gabion (wire basket) wall containing a perforated discharge pipe. Place a vertical epdm sheet on the side you do not want rater to flow (with a layer of rock facing for aesthetics. It could be installed with fence posts for fence along the road or walkway and the walk to your house ramped over to prevent flow back.
I'd need a little more specifics to give the best concept.
Which way does water run on Ridgewood?

Just move let the next owner worry about it.

Pic

Does the elderly female neighbor behind you have a storm drain pipe under the street in front of her house?

Variations on a French drain will not work. The biggest problem is getting the water out of the ground and to the surface.

Moving is not an option unless someone is willing to donate the $350,000 it'll take to get me another house with a two car garage and attached machine shop. I'll have this place paid off in 5 years.

Water in the street drains to the left on the overhead pic.

The street behind mine does not have storm drains either.

I was hoping to lure them in, not count myself amongst them.

is there some rule or issue with piping it to your sewer line?
isn't that like a 4 inch main?

Yeah, that's a big no-no. They don't appreciate flooding the sewer system with storm water. In theory, the rain water dribbles back to the lakes and reservoirs.

Feets, the french drain drawing posted, is built above original ground sort of like a wire wrapped rock wall. For that matter build a rock wall, or brick wall with weep holes?
What is the cfm of the optput pump?
Other options include popup sprinklers/shrub bubblers?

Pic of the pump setup?
Just go 2" all the way.
Bury the line in your yard
May need an above ground P trap for back flow prevention a strategic spot any place on the line, toward the end is preferable. Buy a bush.
Saw cut side walk and curb to put the pipe in and cover with concrete again. Not sure about city permission to do so.

Feets, with the additional info you have provided, your decision to spend the money for an additional electric pump and pay the added cost for kw-hrs of electric power is the best of a bad situation.

You mention the past $30,000 for the foundation work.
Did the foundation repair company suggest installing a water diverting underground curtain of any sort?
Something like a vertical plastic sheet buried six or so feet out from the side of your house?
This would delay the next $30,000 to fix the foundation again.

You mention the estimate of 13,000 gallons having to be pumped after after a 5 inch rain.

There are 7.48 gallons per cubic foot.
5 inches is 5/12 of a foot, so
multiply the width of your backyard by the length of your backyard by 5/12
to get the gallons of rain falling on your property,
and it will tell your what gallons is draining in from property you do not own.

The better solution is to get politicians to fund the retrofit of storm drains to your street, then instal backyard drains that run underground to the new storm drains.
This is easier said than done, but think about putting some effort into that after having so much personal expense.

There is an engineering joke that
the 3 most important parts of railroad construction is:
Drainage, Drainage and Drainage.

Before Julius Caesar became famous as a battle general
he first gained fame for building a long section of the Apian Way road in Southern Italy.
and it had excellent drainage, parts of which still drain well 2000 years later.

This is how I interpret your situation. Pumped transfer from a collection point to a discharge point over about 150' of pipe with a slight high point in the discharge piping run. First off, there isn't any reason to go to 3", the head loss for 43 gpm with 150' of 2" PVC is about 6'. If you have your pump curve I would assume it's perfectly capable of handling this. Go to all 2", trench the line in where it is in the yard, go under the sidewalk and penetrate the curb. Use a stainless mesh to cover the end of the pipe and you are done.

Simple solution but there is no room to go under the sidewalk and through the curb. It would create a belly in the pipe that would draw in water/debris from the street. The debris could block a check valve.

I used the 2" for the uphill runs. The 3" running downhill relieved the load on the pump. The biggest reason for the 3" pipe was the flow rate of the outlet grate. I wanted to stop critters and such from getting into the pipe during our long dry periods. A 2" pipe has a very restrictive grate where the 3" grate is very close to the flow of a 2" pipe.

I'm using a Zoeller M63 pump.



When I get my power upgraded I'll install a pump on the other side of the house to handle downspouts over there and help dewater the soil quicker. When that happens, I'll move the existing pump into that basin and drop a Zoeller M98 in the primary pump basin.

I see I agreed with CYACOP. You are overthinking this. 4" curb, 2" sidewalk, you have about 2" to work with. 2" PVC is about 2 3/8" OD so yes, this is pushing it a bit. But 1 1/2" PVC is about 2" OD which would put you right on the mark. Transition to 1 1/2" prior to the sidewalk and use two 1 1/2" outlets. Done. You mentioned that your collection point (pump location) is lower than the street. You also mentioned that you have a high point in the line. Put an atmospheric vent at this point to prevent syphoning from the street to the collection point. I would doubt that water running into the drain from the street would be a concern. We have high ground water in my town and there are probably half a dozen installations where the curb was penetrated at street level for a sump pump discharge.

Edit: I did a quick hydraulic calculation assuming 5' of static head from your collection point to the high point and your pump flowrate of 43 gpm is pretty close.

How about planting water absorbing plants? https://thepracticalplanter.com/plants-that-absorb-lots-of-water/. If everyone plants a few maybe they will take care of the standing water.

I think you are lucky to live in a municipality that appears happy to let you do as you please without engineering drawings, licensed contractors, insurance and permits...

Bury the whole pipe, it's being pumped uphill anyway, so go under the sidewalk and to the curb.
Even if it creates a low spot in the 2" piping - so what? That trapped water will just sit there static when pump is not running.
Cut the sidewalk open to bury the pipe, drill or cut through the curb and terminate the 2" discharge in the curb face.
The cost of this will not be high to get that last stretch.
A small PVC back flow preventer will not clog easily especially if you 45 the curb discharge in the direction of flow.
You can place the back flow below the grass between sidewalk and curb where it can be accessed for service.
You can even put a 45-T junction on the discharge side at the backflow so you can open it and flush debris out of it.
Once you have the above scope done, and it has run for a month or two, evaluate what works and what doesn't..

Everything should be accessed for easy service or replacement, which brings me to my next, larger point:

This is a battle between nature and technology. Which one of those two relies on engineering, construction and maintenance?

The burden is on your technology.
You *are* making it as simple as possible, but for sure some part of this will eventually fail and need maintenance.
Just anticipate it and make it easy to access or improve as needed.

Then consider how much maintenance your neighbor who filled his property has had to follow up with.. What is the comparative cost of filling in Lake Kevin?

Long term - do you think you will dry out the black clay?
Because drying clay will shrink and introduce more slope to adjacent properties, which will attract more runoff water.. the ripple effect will possibly need another solution.. beware of nature - she is a b!t$$h
- Art

Maybe I should have said an up side down P trap that extends above the underground pipe. The pump will push the fluid up and out but not allow the water to travel back to the pump.

Mother Nature will always win. All I can do is try to manage what I'm dealt.

There is no way I will ever keep up with the flooding. All I can do is minimize the damage.

For what it's worth, I did raise the back yard a few inches about ten years ago. When I dug out the forms for the shop foundation I spread the spoil across the back yard. That helped a little and I only get 6-7 inches of standing water now. Luckily, if it gets much higher than that the water will flow around the house and out to the street.

It seldom rains all day in DFW. Instead, we normally get the heavy storms that blow through and dump massive amounts of rain in a very short time. In the example I listed, the pump was overrun in about 15 minutes and had 4 inches of water over the pump basin with about 8 inches of water at the catch basins. That storm lasted 45 minutes and took 5 hours of continuous pumping to evacuate. After catching up, the pump cycled for a couple days removing ground water.

The incident that caused me to install the pump was having water get into my shop. The rain was so heavy that the yard flooded with water going around the house and managed to still get just high enough to make a puddle that went 2 feet out from the wall inside the shop.

Willow trees also really suck up the water.

They won't suck up this much water.

French drain is built above grade. Have the pump discharge line run level in the ground, neck it down at the end (inc pressure) to lift it above grade into a larger solid pipe (reservoir) that runs down hill toward the gabion wall french drain.
That down hill portion of run (reservoir) can be done in the same style gabion wall or could be whatever size pipe or rectangular tank that can be hidden in your landscape and anchored to ground to avoid buoyancy when empty..
The option to place flagstone "cap' on the french drain wall exists.
I believe this concept may work as no grout is required the wall can move with the clay, the pump can shutoff after it charges the down hill run of pipe or storage tank that flows to the french drain.
I believe you sump will need to be sized to handle any back-flow should the back-flow get obstructed. Unsing a tank/reservoir allows the pump to cycle and allows continuous discharge of pumped water.
I can imagine other configurations of tank to discharge that would work.

That could be simplified by ditching the tank, running a full length 2" discharge, and popping it above ground and into some form of decorative discharge pushing water into the street.
The neighbor probably would not approve of me blasting water and mud onto his car.

Although, the basis has merit. I just need to find the proper discharge feature.

Since you have a shop and fabrication experience just build a flat metal “slot” discharge across the end of your driveway strong enough for vehicles to drive over.
There will a slight decrease in discharge head seen by your pump if the water velocity at discharge is low and exit point a few inches lower. both of which will result in a slight increase in gallons per minute.

Discharging across the driveway to street apron might be considered safer than the wet sidewalk situation.

Pump
2" discharge underground
double 45 up above ground about 6 inches
8" length straight horizontal pipe and double 45 back underground
garden hose bore under side walk 2" pipe install
sawcut curb
put discharge pipe in
concrete curb back
No need for any check valves or additional equipment
Have a beer and wait for rain

It turns out the city has costly and in-depth requirements for curb cuts. That's not gonna happen.

I think I'm going back to 2" pipe for the full distance. It will be much easier to get that under the sidewalk. I can step up to 3" after the walk and terminate in a 6" diameter catch basin. The basin will be topped by a 6" pop-up discharge. That can be changed out for a grate if necessary.
The basin will be perforated and set in a deep bed of rock. It can be surrounded by pave stones to prevent a muddy mess.

The parkway beside the curb is in the utility right of way so I have to be willing to lose anything placed out there.

Locate it in the driveway cut, steeper grade/self cleaning. I believe it should be located above grade. The rock in the "gabion" would diffuse the flow, much like an aerator in a fish tank.
Having something that can charge a reservoir (6" pipe 50' long would allow the pump to cycle off earlier and being above grade it's not pushing against (surface) water.
The cap at the end of the perf pipe should be accessable to clean out.

Usually, at least locally, there is a law against pumping into sewer line. Here there is a new rule that you can't pump into street, "ice patches".

Typical city government.
They originate a problem by not have a stormwater collection system,
then make it expensive and burdensome for those forced to pump stormwater away to prevent foundation problems.

Since you already announced your will be installing a second pump, reconsider going back to 2 inch.

Bigger pipes are cheaper per gallon moved over a decade.

You or the next owner of the property are going to be pumping for decades.

The multiple thousands of $ you had to spend on the foundation stabilization was a penalty for not pumping earlier.

Ancient fortresses had good stormwater drainage because they did not want their walls to collapse.

Before cannons how did attackers get walls to collapse?

Look up what “Sapper” originally meant.

Where is the sewer line?

I'm not going anywhere near the driveway. Future plans involve widening the drive.

As for the second pump, it will be on the other side of the house. There is enough lump in the yard on that side to run a 3" pipe.

I can't do the gabion wall because that involves building a structure on the right of way. It will be in the way of where my neighbor parks now and where I plan on moving the driveway later.