Sump Pump Yard Drainage Install

Jason Garrett:

Hey, I am Jason from Pearce Scapes Landscaping and Irrigation, we’re here on site today to look at a drain job we’re currently performing for a customer. If we walk over here, I’ll show you what the issue is that we’re addressing. In this backyard, there is an extremely low spot that exists in this back left-hand corner, during a heavy rain, this would turn into a very large holding area for water. Unfortunately, the gravity here does not exist to properly get everything out, so we’re going to need to use a sump pump in this instance. And the sump pump, the guys are currently installing it, digging that area right now. We can walk back there and take a look. As you can see, this is the catch basin that the sump pump will go into, and the sump pump will go into the hole that’s currently being dug.

And a sump pump is being used on this job because the gravity doesn’t exist to get the water out through the pipe. So, the sump pump is, it’s an electric equipment that needs to be hooked up, and it has a float in it. So, the water will gather in the sump pump, and as the water comes up in the level, it will kick the motor on, and the motor will then be used to push the water out because we’re unable to get the water out without the sump pump in this particular instance. So, as you exit from where the sump pump is installed, which is pretty much ground zero of the issue that we’re having here, pipe has already been trenched and laid here, and glued together, and the first stop on this exit is our first catch basin.

And this catch basin has been installed, the pipe has been connected, and then we’ll continue out toward the street. And pipe has already been laid all through here, carrying out. And then, about eight to 10 feet away, it’s another catch basin, that will take water from this downspout, which is a lot that’s going to be exiting off of the shed garage area, and then we’ll continue out. Which, here, pipe has already again been laid, glued together. And here will be another catch basin that they’re still working on, all that’s been tied in, they’ll need to cover it up. And then, from there, it’ll exit out to the street. As you can see here, this is the drain pipe that we installed, this is the drain that’s going to carry the water out. Above that are two pipes, that’s an existing irrigation system that the homeowner had in here.

The key takeaway on this is make sure that whenever anyone’s doing work, that they’re very cognizant of what’s underground, you can have damage to this irrigation system. We carefully trenched around it, we left it in place, we remove valves, we’ll come back, replace these valves, make sure your irrigation systems work properly. So, in this instance, we can actually perform a curb cut, which is more, I would say, over time it will hold up better than a pop-up. A pop-up can actually defect over time, it can get clogged. This we’ll cut with a saw, and the pipe will be down here, with the proper slope it will come out, and it’ll exit directly onto the street.

So, since this is a whole yard transformation project, we’ve looked at the backyard already, issues in the front yard as well. First off, in this little gathering area to the front door, as you can see, the roof was open up at the top, so water would come up. There is a type of a barrier there, but there’s still water that was coming in, which was really washing out the entrance to their front door here. So, what we’ve done is we’ve placed in four drains here. They’re smaller than what you see in the backyard because you don’t want them to be too obtruse here, as you’re walking in. So, one in this corner, in this corner as well. So, there’ll be four drains. This is all connected to the system that we’ve currently installed. And the pipe exits out, we took it under this brick wall, and this will exit out to the street at a different exit area than the one we’ve looked at before.

Another thing you need to be cognizant of when you do a drain job is what’s going on with your gutters. What we came upon here is the gutter was simply here, we added this drain pipe below, but what you had before was what you typically see. It’s a gutter, has a downspout, and it’s just tight, it’s just flowing out. And this was actually in the flower bed, which the flower bed exists. You need to get the water away from your flower bed. You do not want water near your foundation, nor do you want water soaking the roots of your plant system. So, what we did here, so we tied in, we put a downspout adapter onto the gutter, this connects to the pipe, the pipe is underground, travels under, through the flower bed, and continues underground out to the street, as part of this overall drainage solution that we’re doing on this property.

So, in summary, we were working with a very low issue back here that we had to put a sump pump in to work through some slope and drainage issues that we experienced. You have an exit to the street on one side, this pipe has already been underground, it’s heading out to the street, continues out through the fence, with a second point of exit on this curb on the other side of the street, and when we’re all said and done here, the customer’s going to be able to have a yard that he can enjoy again. He’s not going to have to worry about flooding and puddling in the backyard, and he’ll have one complete single solution for his drainage needs.