With all the recent rain, your yard may be looking a little soggy and sad.
If your house and lawn sits on a lower elevation than surrounding houses, you may have various puddles of water pooling in your yard.
The Downsides to Water Puddles
Besides being an eyesore, pooling water kills grass, inhibits mowing, and makes your yard muddy. In worst case scenarios, pooling water can cause your basement to take on water or even rot your home’s foundation. There are several different ways that you can prevent water pooling and damage to your yard.
Installing a French Drain
Installing a French drainage system is one of the best ways to ensure that water won’t collect in your basement. French Drains also help eliminate free-standing water and make sure that your home stays dry and mold free.
When installing a French Drain, the first step after perforating your pipes is to dig a trench around the outside of your footing, which should be about 2-3 feet wide and up to 6 feet deep. Then, when you lay your drain, make sure that the pipe is placed in downward-sloping ground so that gravity moves the water away from your home. Adding a French Drain can significantly improve the natural drainage of your yard.
Adding a Drain Pipe
Similar to the benefits of adding a French Drain, adding a drain pipe can help move water away from a low spot in the yard. A drain pipe is an underground drain that is connected to a pipe in a different area of the lawn.
The pipe pumps water from the low spot where it typically pools to an area that doesn’t receive as much rain fall or is farther away from your home so that you won’t have to worry about water coming into your basement.
Landscaping Fixes
Sometimes adding a drainage system isn’t entirely necessary. In some cases, adding an extension piece to your downspout can help lead water away from your house to a better drainage area. In other cases, you may just need to move the discharge from your sump pump to a different location.
If these options won’t work for your yard, you could consider adding a creek bed, which can help channel water away from a low spot. If you can’t keep water from pooling in one spot, you could consider adding a rain garden in that area filled with water loving plants and rocks.
Although a rain garden doesn’t solve the soggy yard problem, it does offer a way to enhance the beauty of your lawn.
