My husband and his cousins were busy working outside today. They were digging a drainage ditch at his cousins house so that the backyard won’t flood anymore. They worked all day – until about 8 pm! Digging in heavy clay! Man, they won’t need any weight loss pills with the amount of calories they probably burned today!
The job isn’t done yet either. I guess Chris might go back next weekend to help too.
When we first moved into our house we had a bit of a drainage problem in our backyard too. When it rained we’d get huge puddles near the back steps and the back of the house. We have a dry basement, but if we hadn’t done something about the drainage problem shortly after we moved in (2001) we’d likely have a wet basement by now!
I can’t remember exactly what we did, but it involved digging a trench from the back of the house into the middle of the yard and making sure that the trench was on a slight downward grade away from the house so that excess water would flow away from the foundation. We filled the trench with screening (fine gravel) and then soil … after digging out the clay soil which was probably causing the problem in the first place. We haven’t had a problem since!
Hopefully when the guys get done with Chris’ cousins backyard drainage problem it will be as good as ours turned out to be!
Have you ever had to deal with a drainage problem in your yard? What did you do?
