PSA: Always consider drainage when building your pool

[awstevens]

Our house sits on a little bit of a hill so the back yard is lower than the front, meaning the pool is at the bottom of a slope. The PB recommended we install a french drain to give the pool/patio better drainage. The drain runs from the downspout on the corner of the house, along the front edge of the patio and down the side of the patio to a popup drain at the back of our yard. It ended up being the best $600 we spent during the whole project...

The water main burst in front of our neighbor's house last night and there was a river of water coming down the street/sidewalk towards our house...

A sheet of water was coming into our pool yard but drained into the crushed stone just in front of our patio. Water was coming out of the popup drain about a foot high just to give a sense of the volume/force of the water. The patio was completely dry except for one small corner.

My newly installed sod got wet but I think it will survive.

 

[zea3]

Wow! If you get a chance to get any daytime shots before it is repaired please post those as well.

 

[jimim]

Ya I didn’t even have my old sod up yet and I having daily conversations about drainage with my buddy who did the excavation and all drainage and underground work. We actually ended up raising the pool another foot to be safe and ran drains end to end on both sides of the pool and added more drains to a lower area. My yard also now sits 3 feet higher than the back lots if we ever get back yard neighbors. I’m so Parinoid about water.

600 was cheap for what it saved u from. U got ur money back already

 

[kimkats]

SWEET! I bet you were worried until you saw it in action!! NICE job!

Kim

 

[awstevens]

Wow! If you get a chance to get any daytime shots before it is repaired please post those as well.

They repaired the water main last night and the yard looked to be mostly dry this morning.

- - - Updated - - -

Ya I didn’t even have my old sod up yet and I having daily conversations about drainage with my buddy who did the excavation and all drainage and underground work. We actually ended up raising the pool another foot to be safe and ran drains end to end on both sides of the pool and added more drains to a lower area. My yard also now sits 3 feet higher than the back lots if we ever get back yard neighbors. I’m so Parinoid about water.

600 was cheap for what it saved u from. U got ur money back already

Definitely. This picture is before the project was finished but you can see the crushed stone where the drain is. It runs from the near corner of the fence, between the patio and equipment pad then down the far side of the patio. One thing that helped is we did 1 1/2" stone instead of grass on the whole end of the pool where the equipment pad is, which is the uphill side. I'm not sure it would have drained as well if we had grass or flower beds there.

- - - Updated - - -

SWEET! I bet you were worried until you saw it in action!! NICE job!

Kim

I was definitely panicking a little bit last night! Especially since I just installed the sod on Saturday.