Page 1 of 1
Help needed with patio flooding
Posted: Tue Mar 03, 2026 6:15 pm
by Evvanrenea
Can someone help direct me to a fairly easy and cheapest way to fix a flooding issue.
Every time it rains water and mud flood down the hill in my backyard onto the patio. It covers the very never stone patio with mud which is a total pain in the fucking ass to get clean afterwards and to make matters worse the ground underneath the stone patio is starting to degrade and the stones are sinking and the concrete in between the stones is like broken and gaping now. I have a shovel and probably max $200 I can spend the attack this problem. The water wash’s away all the grass but I tried to throw down two bags of grass seed this week thinking that the grass would grow and contain at least the mud issue but I did this not realizing that it’s going to rain this week and I just laid down the seed three days ago so it’s probably all going to wash away.
https://files.fm/u/2c2wgk9qup
Re: Help needed with patio flooding
Posted: Tue Mar 03, 2026 8:17 pm
by Who
Sand bags filled with sand should fit your budget
Re: Help needed with patio flooding
Posted: Tue Mar 03, 2026 8:22 pm
by Animal
buy small bags (so they aren't as heavy) of sack crete. Line the area you are trying to block the water and then stack them however tall they need to be to hold back the water. Basically you are building a sort of retaining wall out of sacks fo dry cement. Because the sacks are dry cement they will stack easily and follow the contour of the ground and each other. with time they get hard and the sacks erode away.
Re: Help needed with patio flooding
Posted: Tue Mar 03, 2026 8:40 pm
by Animal
oooooooooorrrrrrrrrr, you could try that landscaping edging that they edge flower beds with.
https://www.homedepot.com/p/SVOPES-5-Pa ... -US&fp=ggl
Re: Help needed with patio flooding
Posted: Tue Mar 03, 2026 10:10 pm
by Animal
now that i'm looking at it. I think if you lined that patio stone with the metal edging, it would stop the slower water once it got there and would keep it off the stone. But you are going to need to go a bit further up the hill and place either some bag cement to create a dam and move the water down to the yard rather than let it get to the patio area. use the rocks or bags to stop the big water, and let the metal edging stop any slower water that gets past that.
water is a bitch to control. its better to divert as much as you can and then just try to deal with the slower water that gets through.
I'm a hydrological geotechnician civil engineer. and i've looked pretty damn close and i dont see any damn tiddies in that pic.
Re: Help needed with patio flooding
Posted: Tue Mar 03, 2026 10:12 pm
by Biker
Controlling water from below grade areas is a bitch. You can try flower beds and the like but eventually that water will find its way to the lowest point
Re: Help needed with patio flooding
Posted: Tue Mar 03, 2026 10:36 pm
by nerd_alert
Evvanrenea wrote: ↑Tue Mar 03, 2026 6:15 pm
Can someone help direct me to a fairly easy and cheapest way to fix a flooding issue.
Every time it rains water and mud flood down the hill in my backyard onto the patio. It covers the very never stone patio with mud which is a total pain in the fucking ass to get clean afterwards and to make matters worse the ground underneath the stone patio is starting to degrade and the stones are sinking and the concrete in between the stones is like broken and gaping now. I have a shovel and probably max $200 I can spend the attack this problem. The water wash’s away all the grass but I tried to throw down two bags of grass seed this week thinking that the grass would grow and contain at least the mud issue but I did this not realizing that it’s going to rain this week and I just laid down the seed three days ago so it’s probably all going to wash away.
https://files.fm/u/2c2wgk9qup
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_ ... m+flooding
Re: Help needed with patio flooding
Posted: Tue Mar 03, 2026 11:52 pm
by CHEEZY17
If your patio is the lowest level in the area you're in for some trouble. Water will always try to go there.
If at all possible you need to try and divert that water either to a lower area (best) or at least force it around your patio.
With some sweat equity you could possibly alter the hill enough to encourage a different direction or as been noted place physical barriers in the way but keep in mind the water is gonna need to go somewhere.
Personally, I think you had the right idea at first with trying to get some grass in the area to stabilize the dirt. That would solve the mud problem and mitigate the water problem but there will still be some water going downhill as the ground will eventually get saturated.
Solution: Grass + diversion.
Re: Help needed with patio flooding
Posted: Wed Mar 04, 2026 12:06 am
by WarmBidetWater
The image seems to show that you started creating a ditch to divert the water. If that is being overwhelmed, I would dig it wider and deeper and maybe dump gravel in it to help keep it from filling in a to keep it from being a tripping hazard.
Oh and is that a fucking burn barrel in your yard?
Re: Help needed with patio flooding
Posted: Wed Mar 04, 2026 8:07 am
by Evvanrenea
WarmBidetWater wrote: ↑Wed Mar 04, 2026 12:06 am
The image seems to show that you started creating a ditch to divert the water. If that is being overwhelmed, I would dig it wider and deeper and maybe dump gravel in it to help keep it from filling in a to keep it from being a tripping hazard.
Oh and is that a fucking burn barrel in your yard?
I was half ass playing with the idea of a dry creek bed of sorts but I have toddlers and it would take a weekend of digging cos i assume it would need to be at least a foot across and pretty deep. I do have a fair amount of stone for that though. I just don’t know exactly how to plan it out. I also thought about a French drain or something. I know the parts to it aren’t the most horribly expensive. Just again a lot of digging. And yes it’s a burn barrel. I live on a few acres and my ex put it there to burn shit and it’s full of ash and I do not have the muscle needed to move it.
Re: Help needed with patio flooding
Posted: Wed Mar 04, 2026 8:08 am
by Evvanrenea
Holy sheet I didn’t know something like that existed!! That would probably definitely help with the mud issue. Ty!
Re: Help needed with patio flooding
Posted: Wed Mar 04, 2026 8:09 am
by Evvanrenea
Who wrote: ↑Tue Mar 03, 2026 8:17 pm
Sand bags filled with sand should fit your budget
I dunno sand is pretty expensive and it’s a large area haha
Re: Help needed with patio flooding
Posted: Wed Mar 04, 2026 9:40 am
by Who
Evvanrenea wrote: ↑Wed Mar 04, 2026 8:09 am
Who wrote: ↑Tue Mar 03, 2026 8:17 pm
Sand bags filled with sand should fit your budget
I dunno sand is pretty expensive and it’s a large area haha
Take the kids to the beach this weekend and bring back souvenirs
Re: Help needed with patio flooding
Posted: Wed Mar 04, 2026 9:15 pm
by Animal
evvan has become a Happy Meal. She now comes with toys and kids.
Re: Help needed with patio flooding
Posted: Thu Mar 05, 2026 1:58 am
by Evvanrenea
So I ended up digging a pretty decent trench at edge of the patio all the way down that leads to the back of the yard where there is a slope. It took me three hours and I feel like I am dead but I think it will do for this storm. I think maybe a French drain system might work??? But for now I have a half assed rain trench so the mud stays off and it doesn’t flood hopefully. I sprayed water in it after and it drained down so fingers crossed lol
Re: Help needed with patio flooding
Posted: Thu Mar 05, 2026 2:02 am
by Evvanrenea
Animal wrote: ↑Wed Mar 04, 2026 9:15 pm
evvan has become a Happy Meal. She now comes with toys and kids.
Way too many kids.
Re: Help needed with patio flooding
Posted: Thu Mar 05, 2026 3:17 am
by WarmBidetWater
French drain would work but you're gonna have to do a lot more digging to put that in and you'll need to run it to an outlet of some sort (dry well, outlet, low area other than your neighbor's yard, etc.). I don't think $200 would cover the labor and materials based on the picture.
Re: Help needed with patio flooding
Posted: Thu Mar 05, 2026 4:01 am
by nerd_alert
Evvanrenea wrote: ↑Thu Mar 05, 2026 1:58 am
So I ended up digging a pretty decent trench at edge of the patio all the way down that leads to the back of the yard where there is a slope. It took me three hours and I feel like I am dead but I think it will do for this storm. I think maybe a French drain system might work??? But for now I have a half assed rain trench so the mud stays off and it doesn’t flood hopefully. I sprayed water in it after and it drained down so fingers crossed lol
You might want to look into renting a trencher at Home Depot or Lowe's. Looks like the bigger ones can do a six inch wide trench and pretty much however deep you need. Remember to call Miss Utility before doing too much digging. You don't want to tear up a gas line or power line.
Might be outside you budget but it would be way quicker and save a lot of stress on you body.
Re: Help needed with patio flooding
Posted: Thu Mar 05, 2026 4:40 am
by nerd_alert
nerd_alert wrote: ↑Thu Mar 05, 2026 4:01 am
Evvanrenea wrote: ↑Thu Mar 05, 2026 1:58 am
So I ended up digging a pretty decent trench at edge of the patio all the way down that leads to the back of the yard where there is a slope. It took me three hours and I feel like I am dead but I think it will do for this storm. I think maybe a French drain system might work??? But for now I have a half assed rain trench so the mud stays off and it doesn’t flood hopefully. I sprayed water in it after and it drained down so fingers crossed lol
You might want to look into renting a trencher at Home Depot or Lowe's. Looks like the bigger ones can do a six inch wide trench and pretty much however deep you need. Remember to call Miss Utility before doing too much digging. You don't want to tear up a gas line or power line.
Might be outside you budget but it would be way quicker and save a lot of stress on you body.
ok, you may not want to listen to me. I checked my local HD and it's like $310 for one day.
Re: Help needed with patio flooding
Posted: Thu Mar 05, 2026 5:12 am
by Evvanrenea
WarmBidetWater wrote: ↑Thu Mar 05, 2026 3:17 am
French drain would work but you're gonna have to do a lot more digging to put that in and you'll need to run it to an outlet of some sort (dry well, outlet, low area other than your neighbor's yard, etc.). I don't think $200 would cover the labor and materials based on the picture.
Yeah I live on a couple acres and the yard slopes to the back end and behind me is just like 10+ acres of trees and two of said acres are mine. It’s just a lot of steep hill downward and no houses.
I get like 1.5k Friday so I think I’ll probably go that route. I checked outside after the first round of storms and the trench worked but there is still ponding near the house. I think I have a bigger issue due to stone sinking from loss of dirt underneath. It looks like I’m going to have to, and I don’t know how possible this is just spitballing, maybe lift the stones in that area and knock off the old cement and like put down gravel the replace the stones and add new concrete?? I don’t know. It’s my brothers house that I’m just going to rent until I die so I want to make sure I’m taking care of it. He’ll probably reimburse me as well.
Re: Help needed with patio flooding
Posted: Thu Mar 05, 2026 5:14 am
by Evvanrenea
nerd_alert wrote: ↑Thu Mar 05, 2026 4:01 am
Evvanrenea wrote: ↑Thu Mar 05, 2026 1:58 am
So I ended up digging a pretty decent trench at edge of the patio all the way down that leads to the back of the yard where there is a slope. It took me three hours and I feel like I am dead but I think it will do for this storm. I think maybe a French drain system might work??? But for now I have a half assed rain trench so the mud stays off and it doesn’t flood hopefully. I sprayed water in it after and it drained down so fingers crossed lol
You might want to look into renting a trencher at Home Depot or Lowe's. Looks like the bigger ones can do a six inch wide trench and pretty much however deep you need. Remember to call Miss Utility before doing too much digging. You don't want to tear up a gas line or power line.
Might be outside you budget but it would be way quicker and save a lot of stress on you body.
I’m a svelte 120ish lbs of in shape woman full of determination to not need a man…and I’m scared of operating machinery…the shovel is fine lol.
Re: Help needed with patio flooding
Posted: Thu Mar 05, 2026 7:20 am
by nerd_alert
Evvanrenea wrote: ↑Thu Mar 05, 2026 5:14 am
nerd_alert wrote: ↑Thu Mar 05, 2026 4:01 am
Evvanrenea wrote: ↑Thu Mar 05, 2026 1:58 am
So I ended up digging a pretty decent trench at edge of the patio all the way down that leads to the back of the yard where there is a slope. It took me three hours and I feel like I am dead but I think it will do for this storm. I think maybe a French drain system might work??? But for now I have a half assed rain trench so the mud stays off and it doesn’t flood hopefully. I sprayed water in it after and it drained down so fingers crossed lol
You might want to look into renting a trencher at Home Depot or Lowe's. Looks like the bigger ones can do a six inch wide trench and pretty much however deep you need. Remember to call Miss Utility before doing too much digging. You don't want to tear up a gas line or power line.
Might be outside you budget but it would be way quicker and save a lot of stress on you body.
I’m a svelte 120ish lbs of in shape woman full of determination to not need a man…and I’m scared of operating machinery…the shovel is fine lol.
Well, that is good. You got all those kids, make it a contest. "Hey kids, whoever makes the biggest pile of dirt gets a prize!"
Re: Help needed with patio flooding
Posted: Thu Mar 05, 2026 7:22 am
by Evvanrenea
nerd_alert wrote: ↑Thu Mar 05, 2026 7:20 am
Evvanrenea wrote: ↑Thu Mar 05, 2026 5:14 am
nerd_alert wrote: ↑Thu Mar 05, 2026 4:01 am
Evvanrenea wrote: ↑Thu Mar 05, 2026 1:58 am
So I ended up digging a pretty decent trench at edge of the patio all the way down that leads to the back of the yard where there is a slope. It took me three hours and I feel like I am dead but I think it will do for this storm. I think maybe a French drain system might work??? But for now I have a half assed rain trench so the mud stays off and it doesn’t flood hopefully. I sprayed water in it after and it drained down so fingers crossed lol
You might want to look into renting a trencher at Home Depot or Lowe's. Looks like the bigger ones can do a six inch wide trench and pretty much however deep you need. Remember to call Miss Utility before doing too much digging. You don't want to tear up a gas line or power line.
Might be outside you budget but it would be way quicker and save a lot of stress on you body.
I’m a svelte 120ish lbs of in shape woman full of determination to not need a man…and I’m scared of operating machinery…the shovel is fine lol.
Well, that is good. You got all those kids, make it a contest. "Hey kids, whoever makes the biggest pile of dirt gets a prize!"
Then the lines would look wonky and I’d be frazzled. Best I can offer is for them to carry dirt away and clip roots with the branch trimmers lmao
Re: Help needed with patio flooding
Posted: Thu Mar 05, 2026 5:55 pm
by QillerDaemon
I have nothing to offer other than to sticky this topic.
Hope that helps.