Sunday night was rainy. As I was lying in bed listening to the thunder and watching the lightning through closed eyes, I just kept thinking of my poor trench, filling up inch by inch. The next morning I walked over to the site, and, as I expected, it was totally full of water.
Lucky for me, my friend Greg showed up that morning, and he digs trenches as a form of recreation. So after some buckwheat pancakes and raw beet salad we got to work lengthening the “tail” of the drainage trench. To be dramatic, we left a small dam in place, so that at the end of the day we could remove the section of soil and, ideally, the standing water would flow into the tail trench, away from the house site.
We dug for hours and hours, creating an excessively long tail trench that opens up at the end into a sort of light bulb shape. It’ll be a great spot for some tree plantings.
At 6:00 we broke our earthen dam, and watched as the water started to flow.
In the end at least half the water left the trench, which was extremely satisfying. The next day I continued working on the trench until most of the water had drained out. Once all the grading is done, this will be a serious drainage trench. The house is going to last forever.
I was going to say, all that rain filling the trench would make it easier to see if your grade was enough to direct all the water away from your soon-to-be house
Great work, it’s very hard but very rewarding I would imagine (I haven’t had to start my hand digging yet).
Thanks! It was satisfying to see the water flow away from the house site in the end, and know that all that digging was the first step in creating a dry and stable foundation. Once the whole trench was completely graded and full of rubble, we dumped in tons of water to see if it came out at the end of the tail trench. It was so exciting when it did!