How can I prevent water from pooling in the street in front of my house?

Question

I have a problem with water pooling in front of my house. Between my Sprinklers and the rain there is always a puddle where my lawn meets the street.

What do you think is the best way to stop this puddle? I can't reslope the street or regrade my grass. Nor do I want to pay the money to have a professional put a drain in.

I was thinking of drilling some 1" holes and filling them with loose stone or sand. I have never drilled holes in asphalt and I am not sure if this is something I can do with my regular drill.

Answer 1

Most towns/cities will not be too happy with you, if you start cutting up their road. So you'll have to use a method that will be completely on your property.

Dump some dirt

The easiest solution would be to build up the area with a load of dirt. Using a wheelbarrow and a shovel, grab some dirt from another location in your yard. If you can't find a place in your yard to take dirt from, you could always purchase some from a gardening/landscape/home improvement store. Dump the dirt along the edge of the road until your hole becomes a hill, then feather it into the rest of the yard. Plant some grass, and grab one of @dbracey's margaritas and watch it grow.

French drain

A french drain would give the water a place to go.

Start by digging a trench right next to the road about 12" wide, and 12" deep (don't forget to call before you dig, so you don't damage any underground utilities). You want the water to drain away, so you'll want a drop of at least 1/8" for every 1' in length. For example. If the drain will be 20' long, the end of the drain will be 2 1/2" lower than the beginning. Next fill the trench with about 4" of crushed stone, and lay your drain pipe in the middle of the trench. You can use either rigid, or flexible pipe.

Fill the trench to about 2" from the top with more crushed stone, then finish filling the trench with topsoil. plant grass, and enjoy.

Concrete gutter

If you're familiar with working with concrete, and you like a more finished look. You could install a gutter, along the side of the road.

Just remember, you'll need the gutter to slope so water will run away. It's probably a good idea to install a dry well or other drainage method at the end of the gutter, so the water has a place to go (unless you don't care if you simply move the puddle to your neighbors yard).

Answer 2

You could dig a dry well, which is a pit for water to collect and soak away through. At the same time, you will raise the grade which will further help reduce the problem.

Simply dig the area out to a depth of a foot or two, dump in six inches to a foot of gravel, then re-cover with soil, and have your final grade end up about six inches higher than before.

You could dig along the road in both directions to create a french drain if need be.

Answer 3

First of all, drilling or otherwise changing the road will likely expose you to a huge fine or maybe even jail time in some jurisdictions, all changes should only be made to the lawn.

Now you really want to get rid of that water and do that without major changes. The cheap way would be to utilize the area around the bushes (the ones on the left) for absorbing water.

To do so you could slightly lower the ground around the bushes and then cut and lift the lawn between the road and the bushes and put a pipe there - something like 2-3 inches in diameter, some strong plastic will do - then put the lawn back. This will require a single cut along the pipe axis (so that the grass inflicts minimal disruption), you will then remove some ground under the grass, put the pipe into the hollow and then put the lawn back to cover the pipe.

This will take one shovel, one plastic pipe and I guess 30 to 60 minutes of not very intensive work. The only downside of this method is that now all the stuff that gets spilled onto the road (like gasolene and machine oil) will flow directly to the bushes instead of being absorbed by the lawn.

Answer 4

Is it a public road? If so, then the road, the puddle, and some right away from the edge of the road belongs to your village, city, town, county or state. That puddle is bad for the edge of the road (look at those cracks heading toward it), ask them to fix it. Write a nice letter, or attend a local government meeting.

Answer 5

Go to Home Depot and buy a hammock. Go the the supermarket and get frozen limeade mix and tequila and triple sec. Drink margaritas in the hammock and don't worry about a little puddle along the road, behind the plantings where you can't even see it.

Answer 6

This Is Not Pea Gravel, which will never settle, it's called fines or fine gravel, 2 to 4 mm. You can build up the lawn with dirt and fight cars to get grass to grow or acknowledge that the roadway is incomplete and treat it as such: shore it up with a few yards of fine gravel. In a rural area, you might be able to sweat talk the municipal material yard officer into helping you out, with that picture.

sbsg.com