Save Your Yard & Foundation With a Dry Well

by Becky at Flipping the Flip

3 Materials

$230

2 Days

Easy

Nothing glamorous, you can't even see it when it's done, but a dry well is a great way to redirect water in your yard.

save your yard foundation with a dry well, diy, home improvement, landscape, outdoor living

Luckily for us, the house we bought turns out to have the lowest backyard on the block. Or so it seems to us. When it downpours, we get standing water. Deep water. Like take off your shoes, roll up your pants water.

Be sure to come visit my blog Flipping the Flip for all the details about this project and many more!

After doing some research online, which is very important to do as you do not want to redirect water into places that are even worse, water can be insidious, we opted to dig a dry well. It's essentially a big pit filled with gravel.

I kid you not, this is what we found underground. Uh huh. Nothing like urban neglect.

Anyway. We dug ours 4' x 4' x 36" deep. And wow, next time we will hire people. Wow. It hurt.

Once you've finally finally made it and can't move, line the hole with landscape cloth. This keeps dirt from seeping back into the hole and ruining the whole darn thing.

Next, fill it up with gravel. Just plain ol' nothin' fancy gravel. We had two cubic yards delivered based on the size of our pit to China.

Now, we're not done yet but here it is filled. Suggestions include leaving 6-8" of space between the surface and the gravel but we didn't. Our gravel came with loads of fine grains so we're waiting for it to settle a bit. We can always remove gravel if need be. Next steps are to cover the gravel with sand then replace the grass.

It works by collecting water, filtering it through the gravel, then dispersing it underground. C'mon, let it rain so we can watch it work!

All in all, not a complicated project in the least. Just a ton of ouch-ie manual labor. Come on by the blog by clicking the link below for this story and much much more!

Be sure to drop by Flipping the Flip to discover loads more great DIY projects, ideas, and inspiration!

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3 of 9 questions

Dhgrimes1950 on Jun 18, 2016
I would like to know if you did this project to keep water out of your basement? And if so did it do the trick? Thanks for the idea. I have just enough water coming into my basement to be very annoying and will find a cardboard box no matter where I set one :-(

5
James Yeah on Jul 18, 2018

How’s this working today and is there anything you’d do differently

2
Bruce on Mar 18, 2019

This is one type of containment system I am debating. The other is using NDP plastic fill landscape wrapped tubes 15 inch diameter, sunk vertically in our low spot area. Four or six of these, drilled down about 5 feet with 6-12 sand, soil, and sod or grass seed. Anyone tried this? Thanks.

1

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4 of 111 comments

Mrr49571309 on Sep 19, 2021

You would get more leaching back into the ground with washed stone. That means no fines. I would put a mixture of M89 and 57 stones. They are just 2 different sizes. Make sure to cover the top with fabric to keep soil out. Replant grass and add soil after natural compaction.

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- Becky at Flipping the Flip on Sep 19, 2021
  
  Thanks for the tips!
  
  Like
Robi on Apr 25, 2023

Definitely going to try this...Thank you!!

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- Becky at Flipping the Flip on Apr 25, 2023
  
  Fantastic! It's worked well for us all these years so I hope it helps you! Thanks!
  
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