The Paving Blog

Yeah, I know, it’s August. Most places are dry this time of year, and yet it’s the best time, IMO, to address drainage issues. So let’s talk about drains for driveways today.

Draining water from the surfaces we construct, whether driveways or patios and walkways is among the very most essential considerations in all of the architecture involved.  Nothing outside of incredibly low temperatures can wreak the havoc that water can.  Standing water is one of the most corrosive elements of all seeking the micro fractures in concrete from where it enlarges holes and cracks with its small acidic content, to say nothing of its simple abrasiveness.

We see it often, puddles forming at imperfectly-installed levels of cement surfaces.  We see it in pavers and asphalt constructions, where the initial grade was insufficient to conduct the water elsewhere and the blindness of the laying mechanisms ignored what is always supposed to be a professionally-achieved perfect primary grade..

Then there are the installations already up against an impossible sloping situation.  A roadway higher than the garage, for example.  What does one do?

Well, modern property law demands that every neighbor be responsible for his own water and conduct it to an appropriately-supplied point.  When there is a point supplied which can collect positive drainage, then, while it might be hard to accomplish, it becomes possible to reach full adequate drainage.  The most remarkable aid to this process, to my mind, is the concept and the newer manufactured “Channel Drain” system.

Channel drains are collecting drains, about 6 inches deep in size, 4-6 inches wide, which even provide a sloped interior and which are covered with a road-worthy cover which allows water to enter.  The water is then conducted down the channel to a collection point where piping and further drainage remedies can conduct the water away. The channel drain goes in a line all the way across a driveway. Most homes who have such a slope, descending TO the house, install channel drains not only across the roadway but also at the very base entry of the garage itself.  This catches what does not make it past the prior drain system and also conducts it away, often in connecting to the same pipe used by the other drain.

Channel drains can handle an enormous volume of water as well, conducting it efficiently and rapidly away. They represent a clean and efficient way of attractively dealing with the problems of runoff.