Seeking a solution to divert water away from driveway
user-7419966
| Posted in General Discussion on
Seeking advice and ideas to divert water. A neighbor hired a landscaper to divert water from a low, bricked area of their backyard. The outlet was placed on the property line at the bottom of their sloped (toward my property) concrete side driveway. As a result, water drains onto my flat, old asphalt driveway. My main concern is the water pooling and freezing on my driveway during the Minnesota winter, making it slippery to clear snow, set out the trash, etc. What are some simple, low cost options to divert the water to the alley instead of my driveway? I’m not concerned about aesthetics given the alley location. Would a concrete berm work? Or dig a narrow trench with drain pipe? Other ideas? Thank you and much appreciated.
Replies
It is possible that your neighbor has created an illegal diverson of water on to your property which may be actionable in court (sue him)...of course that is a way to turn an issue into a major headache which will ruin your enjoyment of your property so tread carefully.
Put another way, sometimes its better to just suck it up and deal with it rather than cause a bigger stink
Also, I am going to presume that the pop up drain is the offending object, the fence is more or less the property line and the blacktop as seen is yours?
You could go to him and tell him the problem and ask if he would be willing to split the cost of taking the drain under his concrete but that is a pain and going to be more expensive than option B which is to saw cut a small portion of your blacktop up dig in a drain line and either connect it to his drain (taking out the pop up) or put in a drain box to collect the water from his pop up. You would then just go get cold patch mix at HD, Lowes or Menards and fill/tamp your cut out section. Again, you could ask the neighbor to share in the cost but who knows what your relationship is with him
Hello and yes, the fence is the property line and the blacktop is mine. I like your B option in which I install a drain box to collect the water from the pop up. That’s probably the ideal as it would enable me to channel the water through the edge of my property to the public alley. Solutions involving the neighbor are not an option, unfortunately.
It should be fairly easy to cut through that asphalt...you might want to get a masonry blade for a circular saw and cut a six - eight inch wide strip off. You can then dig in a drain pipe and put in a collection box right next to his pop-up. run the pipe and then put in cold patch asphalt and tamp it in. (You may have to put in some rock above the pipe depending on how deep you need to dig it out. You might want to buy a tamper at the big box store. They are just a steel plate 6-8 inches square with a four foot handle that you can use to compact the asphalt depending on how far you have to run the pipe, you should be able to get it done for $100 including the box the pipe and the tool.
Based on the set up, I highly doubt you ever drive on that last 6" of driveway and it more or less is just there to keep you from having to mow along that portion of the lot...theres no real reason you couldn't just forgo the cold patch and just leave it in grass or gravel except that you will have to maintain it.
Ahh bad neighbors. I was helping my uncle installing the brake kit and coddington wheels on his truck when it rained hard. That's when we notice the water flooding the side of the garage came from neighbor's unfinished drainage. Guess the solution B would be the best solution to this issue as the neighbor isn't approachable.