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Draining water from yard into house to get rid of it and possible use

Draining water from yard into house to get rid of it and possible use


  #1  
Old 08-21-18, 03:57 PM
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Draining water from yard into house to get rid of it and possible use

I have a yard which is below ground level and impossible to slope away from the house due to space constraints (property line is in middle of yard, and in the back it's right up against my house, not enough room to work with). During storms and snowmelt there's a lot of water getting into the basement from that yard. Sometimes I have to shopvac it up. I could probably drain it towards the street with weeping tile but the city will charge me a fortune to dig up the sidewalk and street to connect it to the sewer. I'm thinking of what my options are.

First I intend to dig up the yard and replace any damaged masonry and then parge (reparge) the exterior walls, to prevent water infiltration in the future. But the yard is still going to get waterlogged. The water is just causing damage and serving no useful purpose so I'd like to find a way to get it out of the area and also to use some of it. I would like to a) drain the water into the stack pipe which is right there on the inside part of the wall, and it's partly above the floor level, so it's relatively convenient and b) possibly drain some of the water into a barrel or some other kind of container which would then connect to the toilets so they can use that water instead of me paying the city just to flush it down the toilet.

Is it possible to have the yard water drain into a broken water heater, located in the basement, and then have that water piped into the toilets on demand?

If it's possible to store rainwater/snowmelt in the way I described, what about if there's too much water coming in? Can you set it up so any excess gets automatically sent to the stack pipe?

And for the toilets, would they only be able to use the water from the storage tank/broken water heater? What if there's no water in there, how would the toilets access municipal water? Do you rig up a switch to switch from rainwater to municipal water as necessary?
 
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Old 08-21-18, 04:06 PM
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I moved your thread to the waterproofing forum.

How could you have a yard below ground level ? The ground is the level.
I wouldn't recommend bringing the yard water into the house and using it domestically.
It certainly can't be dumped into the waste stack line.
 
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Old 08-21-18, 04:17 PM
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Originally Posted by PJmax
I moved your thread to the waterproofing forum.

How could you have a yard below ground level ? The ground is the level.
I wouldn't recommend bringing the yard water into the house and using it domestically.
It certainly can't be dumped into the waste stack line.
It's 2 feet below sidewalk and street level, and below the neighbour's retaining wall, so it doesn't drain anywhere. Water won't run off the property naturally. It just sits there. More water flows in off the sidewalk and through holes in the neighbour's retaining wall. If it's a light rain, fine, but if there's a thunderstorm or a lot of snow melting, it's a problem. It's a poorly designed property, worsened by the neighbour and the City, which I didn't realize when I bought it. Inspectors don't tell you anything important.
 
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Old 08-21-18, 04:25 PM
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You need an exterior dry well and sump pump to move water elsewhere. You would definitely not bring it into the house.
 
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Old 08-21-18, 04:38 PM
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Originally Posted by XSleeper
You need an exterior dry well and sump pump to move water elsewhere. You would definitely not bring it into the house.
There's nowhere to move it, unless I want to pay the City more than the house is worth to dig up the street and sidewalk to connect weeping tile to the municipal sewer. They have told me I'm not allowed to drain onto the sidewalk. It's ok for them to drain water from the sidewalk into my property, but municipal bylaws say I can't do the opposite. The only place to send this water is into a really deep hole, or into the house where it will make its way to the municipal sewer either directly or indirectly.

I wouldn't recommend bringing the yard water into the house and using it domestically.
It certainly can't be dumped into the waste stack line.
What's the problem with bringing it into the house and using the stack pipe?
 
 

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