Today I decide to "dig" deeper into a drainage problem I have had with the driveway. There is a 3" drain pipe on the left side of the driveway that angles toward the back of the property.
Before the home sale was final, I asked the previous owner about this drain and whether it was working properly. His response was that water backed up a little during a hard rain, but was usually gone within a couple of hours.
LIAR!
Water backs up onto the driveway with as little as a gallon of water (I tested with 1 gallon). A moderate rain storm will result a small lake on the left side of the driveway. And the larger pools take upwards of 4 hours to drain, depending on how much rain has fallen.
I used a wire fishing tool to confirm that the drain really does go toward the back of the property, but the progress of the tool was blocked at about 25 feet, which was right at the fenceline. I dug along the fence to actually see the drainage pipe at the point at which it would cross under the fence.
Once I dug there, I found the pipe and discovered that it actually angled toward and onto my neighbors property, heading directly toward a fence post that was anchored in concrete (have not yet completed the digging to confirm). After discussing with my neighbor, we reached the conclusion that a fencing crew he hired a few years ago most likely dug right through this pipeline path to install a new fencepost, completely blocking the old drainage system.
This seems to support my neighbor's claim that the drainage system worked at one time and, at some point, stopped working. DUH!
I asked him about the company that did the work and he said that, unfortunately, the guy that owned the company was now in jail for some reason.
And his name? Bugsy Siegel (according to my neighbor).
Go figure....
It was getting late in the day, so progress stopped there.
Note: In the last picture, the brick is there to indicate where the fence post is on the other side of the fence. The trench shows the path of the drainage pipe.
