Introduction
We've always had problems with one corner of the house and the gutter downpipe on it. Rain water would run down the pipe, saturate the dirt in a 4ft x 2ft area we have there and run over the path running along the side of the house.
I have wondered what to do about it for a while. Adding one of the plastic splash blocks as a downpipe extender didn't really work so I thought of adding a dry well or soak to help the dirt area absorb the water.
A dry well or soak is an underground structure that helps dispose of unwanted water, such as surface runoff water and stormwater. The water is diverted to a gravel-filled pit or container that temporarily stores the excess water and slowly releases it into the surrounding area.
We once had an area of our lawn at the bottom of another downpipe that was constantly wet after rain. I cured that by installing a 12ft long French Drain under the lawn. It has worked wonderfully for several years now. Unfortunately this wouldn't work on this corner of the house as there is only 4ft x 2ft area of dirt to work in without breaking up and replacing yards of concrete.
Creating the Dry Well
The finished dry well
I rarely throw anything away and so the "you never know" shed has buckets of gravel, small stones, and lumps of concrete taken from the yard at various times, bits of drainpipe, large buckets from the pool chemcials, aluminium lawn edging, and even leftover landscape fabric from the French drain.
The only thing that I had to pay for when installing the dry well was the decorative white rock for finishing it off, and that cost around $100 for 3 cubic ft.
I started off by clearing the rubbish and weeds from the dirt area. I then drilled a series of 1/2" holes in the bottom of one of the 2ft tall, 1ft diameter buckets that once held chemicals for the pool.
At the end farthest away from house wall of the dirt area, I dug a hole a bit deeper than the bucket and levelled off the bottom. I got lucky, living in Indiana, we have at least an 8ft depth of good black dirt without any clay, so the digging was not too arduous. The online sites I looked at say the well should be dug at least 10ft from the house walls, but I simply did not have the space to do that.
I cut about a square yard of landscape fabric and wrapped that around the bottom of the bucket and placed that in the hole. I then filled the bucket with gravel and rock around 1" to 2"'s in size, the smallest at the bottom. I wasn't prepared for how much of this small rock I would need and ended up smashing some of the piece of old concrete I had down to size.
Once the bucket was filled, I placed another square yard of landscape fabric over the top of it and pushed the excess down the sides. The area around the bucket was then backfilled with some of the dirt I had just dug out.
I added a bend to the bottom of the drain pipe, dug a tranch for another length of it, and added a straight piece down to the top of the bucket. I wrapped some of the lawn edging around the top of the bucket to stop dirt from covering the top piece of landscaping fabric and the covered the whole thing with the white decorative rock.
I have to admit, it does look pretty good. I don't know why it shouldn't, but whether it works properly is another story!
Look After Yourself
I did this work over two days in a heat wave. I started work early in the morning and by the time I finished in the early afternoon it was over 95F (35C) in the shade with a heat index of 109F (43C). Doing work like this you really do need to look after yourself. As well as the usual being careful with tools, you must drink a lot of water and take all the rest breaks you need.
Sources & Resources
Dry Well - wikipedia
French Drain - wikipedia
How to Build a Dry Well - WikiHow
How to Build a Simple Dry Well - This Old House
How to Divert Water Runoff Away from Your House - WikiHow
How To Install a French Drain - This Old House
How to Install a French Drain - WikiHow
How to Install a French Drain System in Your Yard - WikiHow