A creek, a branch or a drainage ditch runs along the back of your lot. Most of the year it is a trickle. Then a heavy rain comes through, the channel fills in minutes, and water spills over the bank into the yard and sometimes the basement. After the second time, the question is usually the same: can I put up a wall and keep the water in the creek?
A creek only holds so much. Chattanooga is full of hills, and when rain hits pavement and roofs upslope, it arrives at the creek all at once. If the channel is narrow, choked with debris or silt, or blocked by a culvert that is too small, water has nowhere to go but out. Sometimes the cause is not on your lot at all but at a road crossing or a pipe a few properties upstream. Walk the bank in dry weather and look for narrow spots, trash, fallen trees, undercut banks and the place where the water first goes over.
A wall along the bank looks like the obvious answer, but it can fail. Water that hits a hard wall speeds up and pushes harder at the next bank down. It can undercut the base of the wall, and it can send the problem to a neighbor, which brings its own trouble. A wall also does nothing about water coming from the yard side, such as rain running off your own roof and slope toward the house. Used in the right place, low and well anchored, a wall or a berm can help turn water away from a door or a low corner. It is a piece of the plan and rarely the whole plan.
Work in or beside a stream often needs a permit, and the rules depend on the stream. We cannot tell you from here whether yours does. Check with the local authorities before anyone digs, grades the bank or moves stone, and do not let a crew start on the creek until you know.
If the basement floods, the creek is only half the question. Water also comes in through low windows, window wells, cracks and joints in the foundation, and it rises through the floor when the soil outside is saturated. Often the biggest improvement is at the house:
Not every house on a creek has this problem for the same reason. Our page on why a yard stays wet lists the causes we see most.
We handle yard and foundation drainage. We cannot promise to keep a creek in its bed during a major storm, and nobody honestly can. We can tell you what the lot is doing, what can be done on it, and which parts need a permit or a different specialist. See yard drainage systems and standing water and erosion for what we do.
Tell us where the creek sits relative to the house, how far the water comes in, and how many times it has happened. Call (423) 497-3591 for a free assessment.
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Call (423) 497-3591