April showers bring May flowers?

April 1, 2021

Spring rains reward us with lush green lawns, beautiful flowers and leafy trees. It also can bring drainage issues if we don’t channel the water away from our homes. Flooded lower levels in our homes can be very costly and just plain yucky. 

When we moved into our home, we discovered small leaks every time we had what Texans call gully washers. We also discovered up to 10” of mulch pushed up against our foundation surrounding our place. Rain water turned into under mulch creeks. After removing much of the mulch and channeling the water away from the house using better grading, adding a water barrier and gravel, the seeping stopped. We removed almost all the organic material away from our foundation. 

According to North Carolina Department of Transportation inspectors, most of the drainage ditches originally installed in our neighborhood, if installed at all, are starting to fill up with mature landscaping. Some residents have planted bushes, trees and placed rocks in the areas that originally had small ditches to channel heavy rain water to prevent flooding. Often under-the-driveway culverts are clogged shut. Some of us have built small asphalt curbs at the road edge to channel the rainwater to French drains. By the way NCDOT doesn’t like that either. I told them it beats a garage full of rainwater. They told me we need a drainage ditch on our street to move the water downstream. The trick is to move the water away from the house and into an area that will prevent flooding and erosion. Since we don’t have retention ponds in our neighborhood, we have to be creative and use ditches, natural hills, slopes and gullies to move the water to rivers and streams. 

Speaking of hills and slopes, please don’t remove trees and ground cover from steep property. The plants act as the Lord’s glue holding the hillsides together. If you remove those plants, you could experience erosion on a grand scale and that is not a good thing. We have a slope in our back yard so steep we call the depression the pit of despair. Like many houses in our neighborhood the builder brought in huge boulders to stabilize the earth to build many of our homes. Needless to say, we are very careful with drainage. 

Check with your neighbors if you have drainage concerns. Chances are they are having the same problems. Work together and build a drainage plan that works for your entire piece of Mountain Valley. If you aren’t handy with a shovel, hire a grading company with a good reputation for solving drainage issues. Then go plant some flowers away from your foundation. 

Have a beautiful Mountain Valley April. 

Doug Abbotts

MV HOA President