Help please! Lawn drains, but lawn leaving with it.

283 Views 7 Replies 4 Participants Last post by Zak, 1 d ago

DonRua

Discussion Starter · 15 d ago

I bought a home that had some erosion under a corner of the cement pool deck. I paid $2500 for a company to lift the concrete with foam, seal some cracks, and fill the erosion with dirt. But first rain, the dirt washed right away, erosion just went down under where the foam ended, and continued to take away the dirt. (photos)

So I'm thinking I need to put a french drain in to help direct the water through a pipe, and dry out some of the dirt by the deck. Then I will pack in the erosion firmly with dirt, and plant sod or shrubs over it to hold it, hopefully in a bit dryer state if the french drain helps the water flow.

I have no idea what I'm doing, and it's all DIY. I can't afford much.

Questions: I had a couple people suggest putting the french drain along the deck, but that seems like it would be problematic. I was thikning I should run it maybe 18 inches away from deck edge, and it should still help wiht the problem. Yes/no? Tips on where to place the drain?

Any other suggestions for this issue? I have to work from a limited budget, medical issues have kept resources low.

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GCoco

· #2 · 15 d ago

French drain dries out a wet area, it will never handle the volume you are dealing with. Correct me if I am wrong, it seems the water comes off the pool deck, from the yard by the pool, and the little area between the house and the pool deck.

I would do 2 things. On the left of the pool make a swell so the water does not flow towards the pool but is directed to the woods.

Next install a channel drain against the pool deck. This drain should be on the house side and the left side. The have a 6 inch pipe coming out of this dumping in the woods. You can buy sections that will need to be incased in concrete. You can also build you own. both require lots of digging and concrete. The DIY can be deeper than the prefab to handle the water. You can buy grates for the cover in plastic, fiberglass, aluminum, or steel.

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DonRua

Discussion Starter · #3 · 15 d ago

Yes, there is not standing water to drain, it's just that every rain water washes out the ground on the side of the pool. I don't know if the water is coming off the deck, or rolling down from the left side of the year which is about a foot higher. Probably more likely from the deck I suppose. That's good info, I'll have to learn more about that. I haven't worked with concrete before, but it looks pretty straight forward. Thank you much. I've had two 'handymen" tell me to put in a french drain, but that channel drain makes sense. There is no water accumulating, just mega erosion.

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rookie_in_VA

· #4 · 15 d ago

I think part of your issue is water from the house roof. The house appears to be uphill? Where does the water from the downspouts go?

If the roof water flows freely on or into the ground, then I would advise catching it into a PVC pipe, trenching it and letting it daylight somewhere way past the pool deck area.

Could you take a photo of the house and pool, and use arrows to point where the downspouts are? And also let us know where the downspouts dump the water?

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DonRua

Discussion Starter · #5 · 14 d ago

rookie_in_VA said:
I think part of your issue is water from the house roof. The house appears to be uphill? Where does the water from the downspouts go?

If the roof water flows freely on or into the ground, then I would advise catching it into a PVC pipe, trenching it and letting it daylight somewhere way past the pool deck area.

Could you take a photo of the house and pool, and use arrows to point where the downspouts are? And also let us know where the downspouts dump the water?

Thanks, Rookie. I took some pictures of the roof, house, in relation to the drainage issues.
- Roof has no gutter directing water to spout on back of the house.
-Spout drain seen on corner of house, in photos, is not connected to roof, so it's not catching anything. It is connected to a drain buried in the grass, that looks unused/overgrown. I haven't fully
dug it up to see what's involved, since there was no water issues around and the spout wasn't connected.
- I haven't seen issues from the slope from the roof and hottub and slab beneath, but the ground slopes to small wall, and I have to think some drainage should be there. I've never seen pools of water, but maybe it's going under the wall to cause other issues.

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rookie_in_VA

· #6 · 13 d ago (Edited)

The pictures helped.

You should address the main house and deck roof water runoff first. That’s a lot of water ending up on the ground with no obvious place to go. Importantly that’s easy water to catch and direct away from the house and pool deck. Start with gutters and downspouts, connect the downspouts to a PVC pipe buried underground (trench it), and daylight the PVC pipe down by the wooded fence area. This alone should solve most of the erosion issue.

If the pool deck slopes towards the grass (verify the slope using a level), then focus on grate drain connected to a PVC pipe, as @GCoco suggests above, to catch any additional water.

I’d stay away from a french drain. You have water that’s relatively easy to catch (roof, pool deck) that you can put in a PVC pipe. French drains are for situations when you have non-point water that you want to collect.

Watch a few videos on the Gate City Foundation Drainage channel to get a better idea for how to put all of this together.

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DonRua

Discussion Starter · #7 · 7 d ago

thanks to you both. This has helped tremendously, and steered me in a better direction.

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Zak

· #8 · 1 d ago

The easiest solution to this issue is to prevent erosion so for a quick fix would be to fill in the areas with soil and get grass established, even annual grass will help. Plants or other vegetation will help tremendously, along with bettering what lawn you have there now.

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