Planning with contractors. Just what you wanted on your day off. The drainage problem. Oh joy. Can’t wait. Right?
The homeowner has probably never been able to figure out the cause of the drainage problem. Everyone that has ever tried to solve the drainage problem has failed as well. I would say that is more typical than not in my business.
The homeowner had probably been putting off dealing with the drainage problem for years to months as well, which will have the effect of making a bad problem worse. This is a prescription for a worse drainage problem when it does finally get dealt with many years down the line.
Finding a use for all the dirt that comes out of a french drain installation can be a challenge sometimes. Around 2 cubic yards of dirt from a 4 foot deep by 4 foot in diameter drywell once the dirt is fluffed out, and about a cubic yard per 20 lineal feet in averaged depths of 6″-18″ deep in the french drain.
Use the dirt as a value added resource to create berms and borders. Use the dirt to direct groundwater around affected areas. Use the dirt for home landscape sculpture. Use the dirt in gardens, and use the dirt in newly sited surrounded rock or wood raised bed planting areas, usually on the border of the yard somewhere. Set up a vegetable kitchen greenhouse garden?
Let’s jump ahead now to the original discussion about the dirt coming out of the excavation. The characters in our play are few. A homeowner, a prospective interviewing contractor, and perhaps a buyer as well as agent, lenders etc. The conversation has proceeded to the part where the groundwater problem is acknowledged, the work is scheduled, and the dirt removal price is about to be added to the bid for the excavation; a timely consumer response might pay big dividends at this time if the stated addition in price for the drop box removal can be backed out of the contract proposal price and the dirt can be used on site somewhere. You as the homeowner have just hit a home run and have created a “green” practical benefit to your air quality and lifestyle.
Be creative and figure out a spot for the dirt along one of the rear yard areas for example. Make sure the sprinklers are not located at grade level or already covered up with dirt from a previous drainage attempt perhaps. You do not want your french drains where someone can cover them up further with dirt or garden into the sides of them. Don’t forget to raise those pop up heads with an extension if you need to raise the bed height. Walk and wheel barrow on plywood runs for best cosmetic results.
When I am designing a home drainage project, I favor inventing a way to use the dirt on site in the yard rather than having the homeowners pay to have it hauled off. This is a more productive as well as visually and financially satisfying solution to a moderate amount of dirt in most cases. Say under 10 cubic yards in most yards. Some areas will have room for all the dirt you can generate. Where extreme amounts of dirt need to be removed by hand, a drop box or more is probably your best bet along with an extra worker or two.
Drop box hauling can cost you big bucks.
If someone throws garbage in your “dirt only” drop box during the early morning dark hours for example, prior to when the box is to be picked up. The driver gets there early and picks it up. The homeowner will likely never notice it. A financial and emotional time bomb has just been planted smack dab in the middle of your nice orderly home drainage plan. Little did you they could do you that way, right?
The plot thickens, as I assure you, a telephone call from a person at the drop box hauler will follow a few hours later. The compassion and understanding is gone from the voice on the phone who requests that the company owner call the office sooner if not yesterday. Gone is the voice of what you pictured as a middle age drop box professional. Enter the vision of the drop box woman bill collector. On the edge. She will inform you that your load was not in compliance. You will say, “what”? And there is a balance you need to pay, and there you go, off to the races. Mental confusion and everyone is unhappy.
She will inform you that you did not contract to remove garbage. And you will need to either sort out the entire load at the yard to their satisfaction or pay their highway robbery stupid penalty charge for a mixed load.
No, it has never happened to me. I never have paid a mixed load. Think 4-5 times the original price. I was forced to sort out one load a long time ago however and that was enough to etch this message in my head, just like I am etching it into your head. Messing this up costs you a mixed load price, and you have just been had. “Badly had”. Perhaps hundreds of dollars more had. Many drop box haulers just hand over the full dirt box to another company or department for use in other dirt products. They do not want garbage, or plastic, or sod, or root, or anything that is outside their definition of what is acceptable as dirt. Now to make this even more of a brain drain, the hauler may tell you that dirt includes rock, asphalt, sand, and brick. Some haulers crush it all again. Some haulers just want to shake it out and add other dirt to it, and sell it again.
Check with your drop box hauler about their stipulations and definitions if you are faced with the unpleasant reality of not having a place to use the dirt on site. Ask them what is acceptable to dump within each price category.
Drop box haulers seem to have a quick way of telling you the way it is. Just ask. Some of the ones I have dealt with in the past can cry pretty hard about this mixed load deal. It is a real trap for the unsuspecting homeowner or contractor. If you do get stuck in the trap, just pay it. You will spend eternity trying to get your satisfaction from the legal system. Just pay it and kick yourself for not buying into home drainage study rather than buying into the old mixed load trap.
I herein advise that having to shovel through 10 cubic yards of dirt to satisfy the yard boss isn’t going to make you a nicer person that day. That becomes more than a one man job too. It can be an expensive trap no matter what happens once the drop box is picked up. Inspect all drop boxes prior to pick up to prevent falling into this trap and them the hauler you will call when it is ready for pickup. Pay what ever the fee is or they will lien your property.” Better yet. Do not use drop box companies at all ever again, use the dirt on site.
Do some planning with your drainage contractor to find a functional placement for the dirt if possible. Use the dirt to compact a better foundation grade or to make berms to route groundwater around the area affected. Fill and compact low areas along the foundation or in the yard. Avoid creating berms that trap groundwater at the foundation. Even if the dirt is more clay than anything else it still makes a solid stable base to which better soil can be added to create new raised beds for food, landscape, or floral production.
Another option is to surround the raised bed areas with stacked broken up concrete pieces from that old sidewalk or driveway removal. Have the concrete pieces mortared into a wall perhaps, or just stack them. Lean the stacked walls back a bit and after the soil is raked out to the edges of the bed it will be stable.
Add better soil and rake out the soil to the sides of your stacked wall. I recommend designing under 3 foot tall natural rock or concrete piece walls without concrete or rebar. Higher walls require snap ties and wailers to build what is essentially the same as the state does when they pour a retaining wall along the freeway. Expensive and more than a small amount of knowledge required on the part of the contractor. Lots of strength added features are needed depending on how high, wide, and deep the retaining wall is; like re-bar, footings, wood braced with snap ties and wailers, weep holes for groundwater to run out from under and behind the wall, high lime strength concrete mixes, as well as calcium enriched concrete mixes when standard concrete will not go off because it is too cold outside.
Many homeowners and contractors use colored basalt rock of various sizes for free standing wall construction to create an old world look for a new home. Concrete pieces work well too placed back side out. This exposes a rock surface and a tasty look.
Use that dirt as a value added benefit of installing hand excavated french drains. That is what it is. It makes everthing look so nice when it is raked out and you actually can see the value added improvement in the flesh.
When you are done, step back and proudly see what you have done. You are gonna dig it. No pun intended. Use exposed river rock on the surface of your hand excavated french drain for maximum groundwater collection. Create planting berms along dry creek beds to which your rain drain discharges and french drains can be vented.
Never pass up the opportunity to give a professional home drainage contractor in your area a call or send an e-mail if you need help. Consultations on site and home drainage proposals within the Portland tri-county area are free, and they likely are in your area as well.
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Who da thunk it. Value added! Dirt? Who would have thought? Think dirt. There is money in moving it, and there is money in using it correctly.
They ain’t makin’ any more dirt you know! Never give it away, and especially don’t pay for it to be hauled off when it can turn into part of a beautiful place with the potential for pride, happiness, and reflection.