How To Think About Water Runoff Around Your Property

Rain, snowfall, hail, flooding, there are many ways by which water can pool around your household, and not all of it can evaporate before it causes damage. For this reason, it’s important to implement helpful runoff solutions around your property to direct the water exactly where you need it to go.

Of course, depending on where you live and the intensity of the rainy season, your approach may be stringent or simple. Some houses living near a river that regularly floods may have to invest in local flood defenses to prevent water from damaging the structural integrity of their building, while some may need to deal with a torrential downpour.

When living in a household, it’s uncommon for these provisions to be given to you freely unless this concerns public infrastructure. For this reason, it’s important to understand how exactly to think about water runoff around your property, from all angles, so you can invest in and implement the best possible solution.

With that in mind, you might consider some of the following advice:

Exterior Structures Need Drainage, Too

It’s important to make certain that your exterior structures are designed in a way that allows for good runoff and drainage. For instance, here you can view more about implementing corrugated roofing onto outhouse structures, which can help replace damaged roofing or prevent water from pooling atop them.

Smaller guttering systems can even be appropriate in exterior constructions, such as those that may be placed underneath your conservatory roofing. This way, even if everything else is perfect, you can avoid being let down by exterior structure that pool water and lead to erosion or damaged ground.

The Guttering Needs to Be Cleaned

It’s important to regularly clean your gutters, especially after autumn when leaves fall and can cause blockages along your piping system. It’s also true that gutters don’t last forever. After some time, they can degrade a little, small holes may need to be sealed, and in some cases a full replacement of the unit attaching to the lip of your roofing system, especially when you implement a new roof, can be helpful.

It’s very easy for this maintenance task to slip your mind, which is why a careful approach often wins out first and foremost. 

Driveway Drainage Solutions Are Important

It’s important for your driveway to naturally carry water away from the property, but this won’t happen without direct effect. It’s why grading the driveway is so important, as is installing drains or culverts, especially if it intersects with other pathways. 

On top of this, a swale (which is a sloping ditch) can help you remove the water to the edge of your property and lead to the public drainage system. In the event of heavy rainfall, you won’t have to worry about excess water pooling tearing up your driveway or causing undue damage. For many homeowners, that can provide peace of mind in itself.

Evaluating Erosion & Soil Loss

Unfortunately, erosion and soil loss can be a real problem if your water runoff solutions aren’t adequately implemented. This is why it’s important to identify the areas where soil loss is occurring, so you know where to make improvements.

Often, exposed roots and mounds of sediment can signify its presence. Moreover, the water flow here will tend to fluctuate. You can implement control blankets here, or even find plants that help protect against erosion. This is especially important if you keep a garden and want to make sure your other plants thrive. Of course, while rain can naturally be absorbed into the ground if large pools of water are damaging your garden, it’s important to fix a solution as soon and capably as you can.

Rain Gardens Can Help

Not all runoff solutions have to involve new guttering, drains and feature renovations. In fact, there may be a more creative and flowery solution for you to use. Rain gardens are often utilized as a means of capturing stormwater runoff. 

Put simply – you dig out a shallow area of your garden that is used as a place to focus the runoff from your buildings and exterior property. Filled with flowers and plants that can adequately handle such volumes of water, it will naturally soak in and be used. A rain garden can also provide a comforting place for butterflies, birds and other wildlife to visit.

If you have a green thumb or are just too tired of installing drains to keep doing it, this can be a wonderful alternative or supplement to everything else we’ve suggested on this list.

Investing In Landscaping

Landscaping is more than just designing your garden to look good atop the land it sits on, but it can be designed to maximize water runoff, too. Often, landscapers will grade the slop to ensure a worthwhile contour of the garden, ensuring it looks well-fitted and naturally implemented from the top down.

Remember that you can also use advice in this list to help with that too, such as using the aforementioned swales. On top of this, mulch and groundcovers will help against soil erosion mentioned above. Landscaping can be more expensive than digging out a ditch for runoff, but it looks so much better, can reshape the character of your garden, and remains a worthwhile approach to use.

Report Water Pooling When You See It

Of course, your own property is not situated on an isolated island, it’s affected by the public infrastructure and water runoff solutions that surround it. As such, contributing to flood defense efforts, reporting pools of water on your street that might signify a drainage issue, and generally preparing for the rainy or snow season with all the equipment you need (snowshoes can help), will help you avoid being caught out by heavy wetness.

Over time, this will hopefully help you live in a secure property that has the right solutions in place for dealing with water runoff. With this advice, we’re sure you’ll not only achieve that, but become more familiar with the particular drainage needs of your home.