Mysterious water
Discussion
So...neighbour is saying that there is water in his garden and he thinks it is draining from ours. There is indeed water in his garden, a fair bit upon inspection, enough to be a decent puddle along our joining garden wall.
Our yard is higher than his, probably a couple of inches, and concrete, and the reason he thinks the water comes from ours is because when it rains, puddles to form in the centre of ours as the person laying the concrete (well before our time here) clearly didn't have a level that day, so it bows in the middle forming puddles. So he thinks because our yard has poor drainage the water in his yard must be from ours. I do understand his theory, but:
Some pictures below. His is the yard with the furniture (1st pic), ours is the grotty yard that needs a total overhaul (2nd pic). Another interesting thing, which I think the pics show, is the wall looks very damp (3rd pic), both sides, in the section where the water is in his yard. Clearly this is an outdoor stone wall, so it's obviously going to be damp, but can rising damp cause that sort of water pooling?
Thoughts appreciated!
Our yard is higher than his, probably a couple of inches, and concrete, and the reason he thinks the water comes from ours is because when it rains, puddles to form in the centre of ours as the person laying the concrete (well before our time here) clearly didn't have a level that day, so it bows in the middle forming puddles. So he thinks because our yard has poor drainage the water in his yard must be from ours. I do understand his theory, but:
- It puddles in the middle of our yard when it rains a lot, not along the wall.
- The day I went round to his to check the water situation, it hadn't rained for days, our yard was completely dry, his yard was completely dry, apart from this section along the wall which had enough water to look like he'd just overwatered all his plants with a hosepipe.
Some pictures below. His is the yard with the furniture (1st pic), ours is the grotty yard that needs a total overhaul (2nd pic). Another interesting thing, which I think the pics show, is the wall looks very damp (3rd pic), both sides, in the section where the water is in his yard. Clearly this is an outdoor stone wall, so it's obviously going to be damp, but can rising damp cause that sort of water pooling?
Thoughts appreciated!
Edited by jan8p on Thursday 18th November 19:57
jan8p said:
So he thinks because our yard has poor drainage the water in his yard must be from ours.
He is the one with poor drainage. He needs to address this issue. I don't think that there's anything that you can doo to help. Your raised flower bed is too small to cause that problem.Thanks! We have a good relationship with him (for now 
), so I said it was too much to be drainage from our garden but I'd go away and ask some folk to pacify him, as he was adamant it can't possibly be his yard as he had it redone recently and obviously his drainage is perfect. Clearly not the case as that is standing water and does not drain off toward the waste drain as it should even if it were from our garden.
), so I said it was too much to be drainage from our garden but I'd go away and ask some folk to pacify him, as he was adamant it can't possibly be his yard as he had it redone recently and obviously his drainage is perfect. Clearly not the case as that is standing water and does not drain off toward the waste drain as it should even if it were from our garden.sherman said:
If your neighbour takes away half a slab or so along the wall and replaces it with a gravel soakaway next to the wall it should solve his problem.
He can put pots on the soakaway if he wants to hide it.
Depending on the subsoil. You can put the slab back, just don't point around the edges or use small slabs.He can put pots on the soakaway if he wants to hide it.
The water from your yard will obviously be draining into his as it's lower, i'm guessing this standing water has only become a problem since he had his yard recently 'redone' and its presumably now less permeable than it previously was?
As others have said some form of gravel soak away along the wall should solve the problem.
As others have said some form of gravel soak away along the wall should solve the problem.
Murph7355 said:
Tend to agree with the above.
Might not hurt for you to look at the raised beds you've installed too. How new are these in relation to the issues he's having?
Raised beds are from well before our time, so probably 10+ years ago. His garden repaved in the last few years.Might not hurt for you to look at the raised beds you've installed too. How new are these in relation to the issues he's having?
Bit of an update for this one....so after letting him know I really don't think it's drainage, he's now had an "expert" visit who, by the sounds of it, has also said its too much water to be surface water draining from us. I can only assume he mentioned leaking pipe though, as now the neighbour has changed his tune and he now thinks its a leaking pipe from our side draining over to his patio.
When I first spoke to him about this I explicitly asked if it's happened before, and he said yes, but usually its only over winter......must be an intermittent burst water main then.
Joking aside, our water main comes into our kitchen on the other side of the yard, opposite the wall. So if there is a leak, there's zero evidence of it in our yard, there's holes in the concrete where you'd think it would appear. Only way to know for sure is to grab a sledge hammer and break away the concrete, I'm not sure if this is what he's expecting me to do as part of my investigation
When I first spoke to him about this I explicitly asked if it's happened before, and he said yes, but usually its only over winter......must be an intermittent burst water main then.
Joking aside, our water main comes into our kitchen on the other side of the yard, opposite the wall. So if there is a leak, there's zero evidence of it in our yard, there's holes in the concrete where you'd think it would appear. Only way to know for sure is to grab a sledge hammer and break away the concrete, I'm not sure if this is what he's expecting me to do as part of my investigation
If you tell the water suppliers you think there's a leak they can come and take a sample of the water to confirm if it is coming from their pipes.
I had clear water trickling up from a hole in my garden which I got tested, turned out it was a spring and a land drain the house builders put in had failed
I had clear water trickling up from a hole in my garden which I got tested, turned out it was a spring and a land drain the house builders put in had failed
jan8p said:
Bit of an update for this one....so after letting him know I really don't think it's drainage, he's now had an "expert" visit who, by the sounds of it, has also said its too much water to be surface water draining from us. I can only assume he mentioned leaking pipe though, as now the neighbour has changed his tune and he now thinks its a leaking pipe from our side draining over to his patio.
My garden sits on a massive slab of London clay and it drains really poorly, especially in winter. The neighbour on my left sometimes gets standing water in his garden and is convinced that I "did something with the drains" when I put an extension in. Or at least his angry shouty wife is. My garden also gets standing water. The thing is, his garden is lower than mine and mine is lower than that of my neighbour on the right. Sometime, the neighbor on my right has left her lawn sprinkler on for a couple of hours and, guess what, I start to see water seeping onto my patio under the raised border.
Where I am, one the thing layer of topsoil is saturated, any additional incoming water just runs off over the clay. And if the flow rate isn't enough it sits on the surface.
jan8p said:
Ah, that's interesting! Is this something they will do even if the leak is within your property bounds, so your responsibility? Just leaving us with the repair costs if it turns out to be a leak...
The neighbour would have to contact the water supplier. It may not help that much though. A burst water main could be yours, his or a neighbour's. They can also do sounding to narrow down the location of any burst.Back to reality, as you say, burst mains are not intermittent.
As mentioned earlier, where are all of the drains in the neighbour's back yard (not just his drains.) That is, rainwater, foul, land. He needs to connect to one of these or create a soakaway. As the poster above has mentioned, depending on the topography and subsoil, esp. if clay, this may not be easy.
TA14 said:
jan8p said:
Ah, that's interesting! Is this something they will do even if the leak is within your property bounds, so your responsibility? Just leaving us with the repair costs if it turns out to be a leak...
The neighbour would have to contact the water supplier. It may not help that much though. A burst water main could be yours, his or a neighbour's. They can also do sounding to narrow down the location of any burst.Back to reality, as you say, burst mains are not intermittent.
As mentioned earlier, where are all of the drains in the neighbour's back yard (not just his drains.) That is, rainwater, foul, land. He needs to connect to one of these or create a soakaway. As the poster above has mentioned, depending on the topography and subsoil, esp. if clay, this may not be easy.
At that point I decided that the houses have been here for 90-odd years without any major issues so I'd just ignore the minor inconvenience now and again.
This year has been noticeably drier so far and I haven't noticed any waterlogging/standing water. So far so good.
Thanks everyone. These houses have been here over 100 years, so god knows what is under the yards, be it water, drains, clay, who knows.
I'll tell him to contact the water board if he's that bothered and see if they can help him trace it, but there's zero signs of any leaking pipes in my yard, and my concrete has loads of holes/cracks it could come up through which I would expect if the leak was here.
I'll tell him to contact the water board if he's that bothered and see if they can help him trace it, but there's zero signs of any leaking pipes in my yard, and my concrete has loads of holes/cracks it could come up through which I would expect if the leak was here.
Just as a word of warning. If you call your water company saying you have a leak in your back garden , the likely response will be "Thanks for letting us know sir, can you tell us when you've fixed it?". Clean water pipework within your boundary is the customer's issue to resolve if believed to be leaking.
You'd be better to say that theirs rainwater flooding in the back garden. That way they are likely to check the now adopted private drains and test the water that's present to see if it's clean / foul.
You'd be better to say that theirs rainwater flooding in the back garden. That way they are likely to check the now adopted private drains and test the water that's present to see if it's clean / foul.
It would be worthwhile you checking your gutter down pipes and finding where they drain off to.
It may be that it's to a soak away that is higher than the neighbours garden or a broken clay pipe higher than next door.
It would also help if you cleared up your patio as its holding water in all that moss etc.
It may be that it's to a soak away that is higher than the neighbours garden or a broken clay pipe higher than next door.
It would also help if you cleared up your patio as its holding water in all that moss etc.
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