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I have a water issue in our backyard that can mostly be solved by our neighbor handling it properly. But even if they do, I expect a large storm to put us in the current situation.

The consequence of the water is a small river that flows across our property and down our driveway. The water doesn't flood any area, it actually is pretty well behaved.

We would like to use this space for a patio though and thought we could handle this two different ways,

1/ build the patio to allow the water to flow over it.

2/ capture the water (patch of crushed stone) and pipe it under and out the driveway.

I claim erosion will cause long-term problems to the former resolution but the later could be complicated and expensive (building the patio twice would be more expensive though).

Is there any precedent for handling water by letting it flow over a patio like this? It seems most contractors are happy to over-engineer a water capture system, but I haven't been able to find anything else. Thanks for any advice.

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    Can you raise the patio up a bit and force the water to run around it, you could add some tile to help this.
    – Gil
    Jul 3, 2021 at 15:22
  • The description is clearer than the title. The patio doesn't exist yet, I am more curious about the particular question about letting water run over a patio and what materials would facilitate this (if any). I am skeptical, but curious of it is possible.
    – nlucaroni
    Jul 3, 2021 at 15:31
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    is " two different koi ways" a typo? If not, could you please define what that means ?
    – Criggie
    Jul 4, 2021 at 9:54
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    Assuming you're going to do the patio the proper way (crushed stone, paver base, patio bricks/tiles/slate (whatever), the cost increase to put in a water capture basin and run the outflow under the patio is going to be a small part of the total cost.
    – SteveSh
    Jul 5, 2021 at 11:54
  • In fact, it's likely less. I already have a water basin that we would connect to. Or we would just route it to the driveway (likely we'll do both, connect into existing dry-well and overflow onto the drive.
    – nlucaroni
    Jul 6, 2021 at 14:39

1 Answer 1

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Running the water over the patio is a bad idea you will constantly be cleaning debris, dirt and the slippage factor from slime and such. If you are just dying to run it over I would build a wall upstream the channel the water then build a watercourse stream thru the patio maybe with cute brige or something like that or pipe it under or raise the patio above the water like a wooden deck.

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  • Thanks, those are also good considerations. I have been skeptical of this solution, but it's nice to have a better case against it.
    – nlucaroni
    Jul 6, 2021 at 14:37

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