I am on my way home to excavate some sod where I will construct a driveway. This will be a gravel driveway. The underlying material is clay, so I’m not too concerned with putting down a hard base, however I am concerned with drainage.
From the house to the street, the land slopes slightly the right, so I’m sure that any water movement will be lateral and not into the street. Do I need to put some sort of drainage system on the lower side to control stone loss and erosion? Do I need lateral grooves to control drainage?
I have looked in home improvement books and on the internet and can’t find any information about building a driveway. Somebody please help! I know there’s an expert out there.
This is more from personal experience than true expertise, but I’ll give it anyway.
If you’re removing the sod and going down to the clay, I don’t see any reason to worry about the gravel washing away. The remaining grass that bounds the driveway should do that for you.
As for drainage, why don’t you cut into the clay so that it (a) evens out the left to right slope, and (b) slopes away from your house? This will address all drainage questions. Take it from me, you want to do everything you can to get water AWAY from the house. This will prevent water from entering the old homestead.
If you’re really concerned about drainage, dig trenches on either side of the driveway, and line them with tile. Make sure these trenches do slope to the street. That should solve all drainage issues.
Basically you want to move the water away from the house (and dumping it next to or on to a neighbor’s house isn’t too cool either). Look around and identify the low areas. Generally the street is the place you want to drain to, and if it isn’t going there then you need to know where is it going. If you live in an area that gets lots of rain then it could be a problem. If you live in a dryer area, then it will probably only be a problem once in a while.
Usually you’d hire a professional who has experience with drainage…
I can’t tell just from your description what to do but usually one digs a large row & puts more gravel in it. The theory is that the water would find the low point in that & run to the street.
If you have any drainage concerns at all I would suggest tile. Better to decide yourself where the water is going than to leave it up to mother nature.
I agree with all of the above, but… believe you need to find out or look at where your water comes from first. It is probably coming from your neighbor. Before you try and figure where to send your excess water, discover where it is originating from.
The water will flow down toward the driveway, laterally, as is it a relatively flat portion of a hill. It will flow past the driveway toward the corner, so neighbors are not a concern, nor is the house as the driveway slopes away from the house (though I have other drainage issues with the house. The sod being removed is being used to build up the ground next to the house which is flat and does not slope away - yet. I’ve had the house for 3 weeks and have not stopped working!) I may dig rows, but I think gravity should move the water where it belongs.
My 2 concerns were really losing stone and the driveway becoming a swamp. I am convinced now that I am doing things right. Now I just have to calculate mow much stone I need . . .
…I certainly thought someone would get here before me but…it sounds to me as though you need a French Drain, this consists of a length of perforated PVC pipe buried beneath your driveway that channels the water to the street, or to a dry well at the lowest point in the drive
oh boy, gravel driveways are a huge pain in the ass. The biggest problem is that you have to keep putting more gravel on it periodically. Some of the gravel scatters, but some of it gets driven right into the ground. Eventually you have to replenish it. Its hard to clear the snow from gravel driveways without scraping up all the gravel.
My mom owns a second house, it belonged to her father, and it was an old farmhouse on the edge of town. It used to be in the middle of farm fields, and they laid down ceramic pipes for drainage around the gravel driveway. Then the land around the house was sold and subdivided, the city redid the roads and ditches, this is the only house with a gravel driveway in the neighborhood. In the process of turning the roadside ditches into front lawns, the city totally screwed up the drainage for the house. They also rolled heavy machinery over the buried drainpipes around the driveway, crushing them. Result? Altered drainage put huge water pressure on the basement, water sprang from every crack in the concrete, there was always 6 inches of water in the basement. It took major work reconstructing the drainage tiles and putting in a sump pump. I mean, MAJOR, like $10,000 of work digging out the whole house’s foundation and repairing it. Once they figured out where the water was coming from, they just diverted it back where it was supposed to go, and now the sump doesn’t even get 1 drop of water in it.
So… you have to be careful and not divert the natural flow of water away from your house. Most lots are graded so the water will flow away from the foundations, but in many houses, the land settles and you get low spots that don’t drain well (my current house is like this). If you put up a raised area of driveway and gravel, I fear you’ll end up with a basement full of water, just to cite the worst case. Just check the lay of the land, and make sure the water isn’t trapped or diverted towards the house by the driveway. Or better yet, get a professional to check the drainage and topography.
BTW, someone suggested that cheap PVC drainpipe. That stuff always collapses after a year or so. Might as well do it right if you’d just have to do it over in a year or two.