Completely new at this :/

[skyking1]

Filling and and tearing up the whole yard is really pointless. You have a low point with a catchbasin and grate. Just pipe out of it downhill towards the parking area, put in fabric and drain rock along the way.
Grade it nearly flat. Storm water does not care about keeping a certain slope.
Keep digging until that pipe comes out of the ground. That is called daylighting.
if the soils are as you say, no water will come out of that pipe. It will all soak in.
If it did not all soak in, then anything left will run out of the daylighted pipe and the basement would never flood.
If you are not sure that it will daylight, assemble all your garden hoses and fill them until you can reach where you think it might be the same level or lower. Use the water level in the hose to determine the elevation between the two points.
This is a simple water level and is accurate as anything.
For a quick check, use a long level and sight down the top of it and take some measurements to the ground. This method is easier with help.

This solution requires a trench, some pipe, some gravel dumped on your parking area, and a wheelbarrow. The trench will heal back up after one season and you will not know it is there.

 

[CM1995]

Late to the party but as others have said if you can cut and re-grade where the water naturally drains away from the basement door that is the best solution.

I make my living installing storm drains and they will all clog over time. By re-grading the area to drain away from the garage it will also make the garage door more accessible.

More work, more time and more mess during but it's the best solution.

 

[skyking1]

I think you're all nuts for suggesting that because by the time you got to a point below that basement, you'd tear up the whole world up there. But that's me. I just don't like making work including landscaping the entire lot and reseeding the entire place

 

[Delmer]

I still can't tell how much dirt it would take, but it doesn't matter, having the grade slope away from the house is the best, no question.

 

[Project-man]

I would love to have a company come in and put a direct rainwater drain line to the hill side where most of the water goes but to do that, a trench would have to be dug more than 20' deep to create the right drainage pitch and that's way beyond what I can afford. When we moved into this house, I discovered the driveway drain that originally ended at the hillside was collapsed and was not working properly.

I had a excavator guy dig it up, replace it with solid 6" PVC all the way to the hillside. From the driveway drain to where his pipe ended, his trench was about 10' down from the edge of the hillside. So in other words, the digging depth it would take to properly pitch water from my garage/basement area which is probably at least 12' lower than the driveway drain would be a considerable project.

So back to the drawing board.....today we had a front come in and experienced 50+ MPH wind gusts so I was not able to stake out my planned pathway and attempt to calculate the amount of material necessary to complete the job ....Yesterday, my neighbor was burning some junk near his utility building and the fire got away from him. The one town firetruck came to the rescue and I had the opportunity to help putting out the fires with my neighbor while the driver worked the water pressure panel on his truck.... living in the country is fun and educational.....

 

[Delmer]

a trench would have to be dug more than 20' deep to create the right drainage pitch

I find that hard to believe.

 

[skyking1]

I don't see it either.

 

[Willie B]

Any house I've been involved with has about 7' of concrete below the highest point of grade. Depending on the strategy, you either have a catch basin where the grade is lower than anything nearby. Might be 6 feet higher than the cellar floor. A narrow trench is dug somewhat lower than the cellar floor. Pipe is laid with a bit of slope to drain it away. It won't work if you don't have enough slope to your land you can drain to daylight. I suggest 1/8" per foot slope.

In some cases the pipe is buried in the soil already there, some would make it a french drain with landscape cloth & crushed stone using perforated pipe.

If you also have a high water table where underground water is a concern, the job gets bigger.

 

[oarwhat]

I would like to see a survey with elevations. That would make quick work of what to do. Do you have access to a laser level or any other survey equipment?

 

[CM1995]

I would like to see a survey with elevations. That would make quick work of what to do. Do you have access to a laser level or any other survey equipment?

Agree. I think Sunbelt rents lasers but for what they charge one can almost buy a cheap laser/tripod/grade rod combo. Either way a laser would be handy over time.

About 4-5 shots from the garage to the lowest point will tell the tale.

 

[Delmer]

Garden hose makes a workable level. $20 of vinyl tubing works even better, cut one end at a slant and pull it through a hole in the lower side of a 5 gallon bucket for the deluxe version. Don't need a laser level to tell the difference between 20' and 4' or 16".

 

[Project-man]

So again....thanks so much for the input.....I'm sending some pics of the basement and apron drain location and the hill area leading down to the garage/basement area.....In taking these pictures I've realized the apron drain and the basement drain is a mouse highway.....I thought my house was sealed pretty well against rodents but did not account for the 3" PVC leading from the outside drain to the floor drain...... almost a mouse a week in my basement traps and couldn't figure out where the hell they were coming from.....:/

 

[Tinkerer]

Good grief !
What a nuisance and tripping hazard that pipe is.
You need a either a check valve or a trap in the line going to the pit and grate outside. You could then remove the sump pump permanently.

Not a mouse trap but a plumbing trap. Either one will stop mice and odors from entering the basement.
The plumbing trap is useless tho if all the water evaporates out of it.

 

[skyking1]

I add a glass of water to any unused trap a month for that reason. We have a bathtub that does not get used and hoo boy that septic stench only had to come in once for me to get right on that.

 

[HarleyHappy]

Sooo, looking out through the door there is the end of a fence on the right.
See how that grade runs perfect to your door?
That needs a swale about 10 feet from your door with a positive drain all the way to the corner of your driveway.
Easy peasy.
If it were me, I would possibly redo that drain from the catch basin in front of your door and maybe upsize it.
Not completely sure that’s warranted though.
You have a lot of square footage of drain all the way to your door.
If that hill outside your door was burden from the door and retaining wall, great.
Use that creating the swale, put fabric and some rock, loam and seed.
You should be able to create a nice flat area for a volleyball set up. lol
No offense but this has gotten way too complicated and while this has been fun, get a plan together and get it done AFTER the wet season.
You may be able to get this done soon as you probably have little to no frost.
Good luck.

 

[Project-man]

So we can see the rainwater first collects into the apron drain in front of the garage door then empties into the drain in the basement via a 4" PVC pipe then another buried irrigation perforated coil piping (50') dissipates the rainwater under the basement floor and sadly not directly to another hillside @ 100' away from the back of the home.

The home had been unoccupied for @ 5 years before we bought it and the basement had sustained a number of floods before our purchase. The basement area was semi finished off with wall paneling and insulation on the outside walls of the basement..... Needless to say my first job was to remove the water damaged paneling, rugs and insulation......It was a nasty job but someone needed to do it.... The basement dried out within a month and has been bone dry ever since except for the excessive downpours we have here @ 2-3 times a year. I installed that sump pump in anticipation of another possible flood but we all know that pump can only handle so much water and if we get a deluge of 3-5 inches in a matter of hours my goose is cooked.....

The basement is divided into 2 halves and I installed 2x8 PT boards in front of the 2 doorways that connect the 2 haves of the basement to prevent flood waters from reaching the utility / living space section of the basement. So coming up with a permanent solution to a anticipatory flood has been on my checklist ever since we had our last minor flood last summer.

Thanks again for the comments and recommendations.....I'll be out soon laying out a potential pool pathway to the front yard and after some measuring and calculations, I will be able to determine the best course of action....with the Forum's help.....

 

[Acoals]

Man, 7 pages! I am pretty sure the horse was dead by page 2 . . .

 

[MG84]

Man, 7 pages! I am pretty sure the horse was dead by page 2 . . .

Honestly I don't know that he'll ever get a good answer over the internet, despite the knowledge base here. In person most of us could probably go walk the site, shoot some grade elevations and know what to do in a few minutes. That's just nigh on impossible going off some pictures and descriptions while sitting hundreds of miles away. I'm afraid the OP needs to take the suggestions he's been given and figure it out for himself or hire a local professional to do it.

 

[skyking1]

If he was nearby I would go shoot it myself and write down some elevations in THE BOOK OF ELEVATIONS!

 

[Project-man]

Thanks again for the information and I will rely on the recommendation the last excavation guy gave me last summer and go from there..... Did not mean to be a P I T A here.