I'm kind of in a bind and I'm hoping that someone here has either been through this or at least has experience to make a good recommendation, because I'm not really sure what is wrong or what is the best way to fix it.

In a nutshell, my underground gutter system doesn't take water like it's supposed to, so instead it backs into the house, runs down the inside of the foyer walls, into the crawl space, then out the crawl space entrance in the basement (which had a crude, semi-finished wall covering it), down the concrete block wall that's hidden, and out the floor and across the basement to the sump pumps.

Here is a picture of the leaders, two side by side, one of which I diverted last night in the storm just to get some flooding relief - which worked acceptably.

http://frederic.woodbridgedata.com/p...gutters-01.JPG

I dug and dug and dug, which sucked through the hard clay with embedded rocks, gravel, roofing nails, an old trowel, complete and chunks of bricks, and a long metal pointy thing I have no idea what it is. Anyway, lots of digging:

http://frederic.woodbridgedata.com/p...gutters-03.JPG


I thought the two pipes would go to the same drywell, apparently that was a stupid assumption. One pipe goes to a vertical reinforced clap pipe which goes down to who knows where, to about 8' in depth, and when I shoved a narrower pipe in there it clangs when it hits the bottom (once I pumped all the water out which took 3+ hours:

http://frederic.woodbridgedata.com/p...gutters-04.JPG

I don't know what this is. It's not connected to the sewer as the sewer pipe goes at a diagonal away from this vertical pipe. I shoved a flashlight down there tied to a string, and didn't see any perforations, just cracks and stuff.

So, that's one pipe.

The second pipe extends past this vertical pipe, hooks towards the middle of the lawn at a 45 degree angle, to a plastic tub containing small pebbles. I didn't dig the whole thing up but I imagine it's a perforated tub and the pebbles just prevent the plastic shell from being compressed by the earth. I say I "imagine" because I really have no idea and that's the best guess I could come up with.

http://frederic.woodbridgedata.com/p...gutters-07.JPG

I put a hose on top of the pebbles and turned on the water, and within 20-30 seconds the water overflowed the plastic, pebble filled container so I'm thinking the water isn't leeching out.

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The question is, how do I fix this?

The solution I came up with is to borrow/rent/beg for a large backhoe, and dig next to the pipe in picture "yard-gutters-04.jpg", and make a huge, deep pit and cut both pipes and glue on elbows and point them into the pit. I would think I'd need to fill the pit with gravel?

Do I line it?

How big do these need to be?

How deep?

Big gravel, small gravel, or open?

Should I buy another stupid plastic thing and fill it with pebbles, or should I make a big one myself out of concrete block spaced apart with wire mesh around it?

Just some random thoughts I've had in my head. I googled a bit but didn't really see something applicable to my concerns, other than the standard home depot plastic thing with a top and bury it type solution.

Both pipes are 4" diameter and not graded very well (no more than 2 degrees downward slope) and in the middle of the two pipes are two concrete "bars" that are 8" wide that protect something, and go under the driveway. I can't imagine what that would be because there's nothing on the other side of the driveway, unless you count weeds.

Any ideas, advice, weblinks, suggestions would be most appreciated. This is definitely not my expertise and I'd like to repair this correctly once, and not have to deal with flooding for decades.

Thanks!

 

since it appears you are such a great digger, i'd do the following:

dig a 4' diameter x 6' deep hole, use cynderblocks to essentially build a "block dry well" and run a 4" PVC pipe into that...no rocks, no nothing in it. the blocks will allow it to leach out....you really could get away with something much smaller.

i have clay soil at my house and 34 years ago, they put in a dry well such as this for the laundry and kitchen (and now my full house reverse osmosis water purification unit pumps about 500 or more gallons/day into it) and they have that leading to my other drywell (same build as the other) which actually accepts my sewage effluent from my 1k gal septic tank....

hope that made sense....

here's a pic...the round ones are the drywells.

 

i will try to come up tomorrow after my treatment to give it a better look than i got in the pictures. than we can come up with a permanent repair.

 

Tom - Anytime after about 1pm. BX Zoo in the morning. I'll have my cell with me of course.

Rob - could you elaborate a little bit on the wall construction? If I understand you correctly, I just stack the blocks and not morter them? That would make sense from a drainage perspective but I was wondering how it would not get crushed or pushed in from the earth.

And the "lid" is a little confusing, but that might be from 14 hours of digging and not enough food intake.

 

pebbles in the drywell make for a percolator effect. Clay soils are very fine, so a 4" perf pipe with a SOCK is needed. Using just a 4" pipe will eventually clog with clay.

Do you have city water/sewer? Maybe that vert. pipe was for something the city put in. Perhaps a city storm sewer, seperate from the septic.

An almost level grade would allow the water to "carry" the dirt entering through the holes to be floated away. And maybe the concrete parts were put in to prevent the pouring of the driveway to not crush the perf pipe.

Hope it ends up good...I've had to deal with rain and spring run-off the hard way, too.

 

If it were me I would not rely on sumps and pumps or gravel pits to solve the problem. I would dig up the old pipe and replace with 4 inch solit ads pipe and take it all the way to the street if you live in the city, or ditch if you have one. i normally use a downpout adapter to go throught the curb because it leaves a nice square hole on the curb. But if you do not want to cut the curb they make a popup head that you can attach which lets the water out but shuts when the water stops flowing.

 

Take some 1/2" pvc about 6-8' long connect your garden hose to the end with a connector temporarily, Turn on the water and force it down in to the ground in the pit your making hopefully you will get through the clay layer if not when the hose get level with the gound, let the water run until it is clear, turn off water disconnect hose.
A few of them will let the water drain down deeper in the drywell, Just them being there will give the water something to follow deeper even if the get plugged.

 

from what we saw (the septic pumpers and I), they weren't mortered. the clay soil here is very very heavy and doesn't seem to move much, i'm surprised it wasn't mortared myself....as far as the lid for the drywell you'd create, THAT is a different story lol. this is a 4.5' round with a hook (precast concrete, must've been created for this purpose so many years ago).

i am having drainage problems myself, and it appears i might have some work to do in the spring, gonna shove a 3" (or 3.5") solid pip about 5' into my perforated 4" pipe and then run it waaaay into the weeds, let the "water" drain back there.... NOW BACK TO YOUR STORY!

good luck...once you get a solid plan, check out a rental place for a lawn type backhoe, the small, tracked ones septic companies use...save your back.

 

Well, the saga continues.

Broke through something, making a 6" hole, and what broke "fell in" to what appears to be an incredibly large tank that goes under the driveway. I can't really see much except the slimy metal wall that's just under the hole we made today.

Pumped out all the water though - 600gph rated pump took a little more than 3 hours, plus the 3 from yesterday, so assuming I had max flow and the paperwork with the pump is accurate that's about 3600 gallons. The tank is 8' deep as measured with a 10' "yardstick" I used to use for measuring the level in my heating oil tank. Jamming it down there good there's at least 5" of silt on the bottom, which I just see at this point.

I can't fit my head into a 7" jagged hole and my attempt to wave a mirror in there with a flashlight was useless.

I did spy several pipes sticking out of the side closest to the hole, but I haven't dug them out yet. Coincidentally, these pipes are angled "perfectly" to the other leaders coming down the house from the gutters.

So I think my options may have serious changed - I either make a bunch of dry wells for each of the leaders, OR maybe I come up with some method to pump out this massive tank on a regular basis.

I thought of making a cement "collar" to replace what my cousin and I smashed up today, and installing a decent sized pump on it with a pipe going down with a check valve on the bottom, pumping the water to underground plumbing to a french drain I make further down the yard, or maybe up unto the street level which is just high enough the water doesn't go uphill.

Then of course there's the result of the lame perk test I did today. I dug out all the pebbles out of the makeshift french drain that one and only one leader was attached to, shop vac'd out the water, then refilled it to the top. Didn't take very long. This was mid-afternoon, maybe 3pm or thereabouts. Before I came inside, around 9pm, I checked the water level in that hole and..... it's still at the top. So it's not seeping at all.

I presume this huge tank is supposed to seep, but with all the silt on the bottom it's not able to. Otherwise why the heck would such a large tank be there to store water if there's nowhere for the water to go.

Not sure if i can, or need to, remove the silt either.

Open to ideas, suggestions, and whatnot.

What i'm thinking I need to do is buy/obtain/acquire a trash pump of some kind, and mount it underground in a concrete "box" with a concrete lid at grass height so it can be serviced. With a drain that feeds into the tank. This way, the heavy storms can fill the tank, and the pump can dispurse it slowly over time after that. Then I have to think about level control, a way of shutting off the pump if it runs dry, and so on. Making a "sock" for the bottom, etc.

Me, I'd just stick the pump on the driveway next to it and run pipes or hoses through the grass to the tank and one down the driveway into the street. But the asthetics police already veto'd a pump entirely, so I have to find a way to bury it somehow if I go the pump route, so that the pump isn't terribly obvious.

 

Where I live, mound systems are mandatory in outside city sewer, which have underwater pumps, and in-house alarms. Seems to me you could use these inside the bottom of the tank with a cover for inspection. The pump will need a screen as solids don't do a pump well. Good luck. The pump shuts off when the water level is low enough, and the alarm box in the house tells when the pump can't "keep up", or fails.

 

hehehe. how did i know that was gonna happen??

 

I have to bury it

Just concerned how waterproof a pail is going to be, considering most of the units I've seen seem to prefer to mount on a base of some kind. Have to allow for airflow for the pump too.

 

Fred...You ever think about doing it this way.Some builders i work for they dig a trench say 20 feet long about 18 inches deep lay 3or4 inch coex corrugated pipe
in the trench with 3/4 inch stone on the bottom,about 4 inches deep.This is for each down spout.At the house rain gutter they put a wye so you can clean out the pipe.

 

If the driveway was repaved or the yard resodded they might have went over the access to the tank, Pumping it out every now and again through an access would be the easiest and not have to worry about a pump in there permanent.

 

where are you at in jersey if your not to far and need a backhoe i have a pretty big kubota with backhoe and loader. let me know if you need a hand