Home Renovation - Good Drainage Equals a Better Selling Price
Drainage is defiantly not a top topic when discussing home renovations.
We like to discuss kitchen and bathroom renovations, but when prospective buyers look at your yard and see drainage problems they won't give your property a second look.
It is incredibly frustrating when you discover that the house you bought during a dry spell suddenly the yard looks like a lake or a mud patch after heavy rain.
It doesn't matter whether you have a flat block of land or sloping there can be water problems.
The kind of soil will dictate the speed of drainage; a good red soil will drain better because it is usually over deep layers of volcanic rock.
Black soils and clay soils tend to drain poorly.
I you have land that has some slope to the road then you can put in drainage tranches to flow the excess water.
If your land level runs to the back of your land you can still use the drainage trench method but you may have to include a pit with a submersible pump.
To create an effective drainage trench you will need to identify the water flows in your yard.
If it is your front yard you find the point of most water collection and dig a trench to the road or to your storm water pipe.
You will need the proper piping to use in this trench.
Its a perforated flexible plastic pipe with a sock like sleeve covering it.
Now its all about levels.
You need to shift water from a low point to the road.
When you lay your pipe you will need to know the height difference between those two points.
I would recommend you hire an automatic level.
Some can be operated by one person.
In the bottom of your trench place a layer of gravel of approximately 20ml or 3/4 inch diameter.
Set you gravel to your correct levels.
Place the pipe on the gravel and cover with more gravel.
You can place larger stones on top to bring it up to the surface level if you are still concerned about water being removed fast enough.
Otherwise you can bring your gravel near to the top and place grass to disguise it.
If the water is at the rear of your property then you are restricted to bringing your pipes down the side of the house, because of the distance you may need to play around with levels a bit more.
If at the rear of your property the water is gathering near the rear bound then one or two soakage pipes leading to that point will be required.
You will need to dig a pit and place a metal box inside to house a submersible pump.
From there the water can be pumped to the road in flexable piping.
You will need to set up your electrical point for the pump properly for safety.
We like to discuss kitchen and bathroom renovations, but when prospective buyers look at your yard and see drainage problems they won't give your property a second look.
It is incredibly frustrating when you discover that the house you bought during a dry spell suddenly the yard looks like a lake or a mud patch after heavy rain.
It doesn't matter whether you have a flat block of land or sloping there can be water problems.
The kind of soil will dictate the speed of drainage; a good red soil will drain better because it is usually over deep layers of volcanic rock.
Black soils and clay soils tend to drain poorly.
I you have land that has some slope to the road then you can put in drainage tranches to flow the excess water.
If your land level runs to the back of your land you can still use the drainage trench method but you may have to include a pit with a submersible pump.
To create an effective drainage trench you will need to identify the water flows in your yard.
If it is your front yard you find the point of most water collection and dig a trench to the road or to your storm water pipe.
You will need the proper piping to use in this trench.
Its a perforated flexible plastic pipe with a sock like sleeve covering it.
Now its all about levels.
You need to shift water from a low point to the road.
When you lay your pipe you will need to know the height difference between those two points.
I would recommend you hire an automatic level.
Some can be operated by one person.
In the bottom of your trench place a layer of gravel of approximately 20ml or 3/4 inch diameter.
Set you gravel to your correct levels.
Place the pipe on the gravel and cover with more gravel.
You can place larger stones on top to bring it up to the surface level if you are still concerned about water being removed fast enough.
Otherwise you can bring your gravel near to the top and place grass to disguise it.
If the water is at the rear of your property then you are restricted to bringing your pipes down the side of the house, because of the distance you may need to play around with levels a bit more.
If at the rear of your property the water is gathering near the rear bound then one or two soakage pipes leading to that point will be required.
You will need to dig a pit and place a metal box inside to house a submersible pump.
From there the water can be pumped to the road in flexable piping.
You will need to set up your electrical point for the pump properly for safety.
