Retaining wall weep holes cannot "drain" to neighbor's property?

[LOTE]

I am designing a small retaining wall 5-ft off the property line with weep holes. The town permitting department rejected the design because there are "downspouts" (to use the town's language) that will pour water onto the neighbor's property.

The wall is flattening out the site, but the previous condition had the site sloping toward the neighbor's property. The weep holes are there primarily to reduce hydrstatic pressure behind the wall, not to collect and discharge site drainage. Rarely will water ever come out of the weep holes. I am wondering if the permitting department just doesn't understand this, or if I am missing something about needing to keep every possible drop of water onsite?

I could understand if the wall was placed right on the property line, but 5-ft off seems like plenty to absorb weep hole discharge?

 

[EireChch]

Considering you are not changing what was previously happening (i.e. site draining to neighbor) it does seem ridiculous.

You need to get a face to face meeting.

 

[LOTE]

Thanks EireChrch, it is a re-occurring theme recently. I will likely be giving this one a call later today, but I'm hoping to develop a boiler plate response I can give for this type of issue going forward.

 

[dik]

Eire is correct... you need a chit chat. It's a matter of explaining what the purpose of them is, and unless you have exceptional ground water you can show him (after the fact) that water does not flow from them. If there are other retaining walls in the area with weep holes, you can show him that these don't 'leak'.

In addition, you should have a caveat on their property signifying that the weep holes are there.

In the absense of the above, you may have to drain the retaining wall into a sump/French drain on your property and pump any water away (?).

-----*****-----
So strange to see the singularity approaching while the entire planet is rapidly turning into a hellscape. -John Coates

-Dik

 

[bimr]

Towns are faced with doing what I label as "complaint engineering" from the neighbors.

If you are 5 feet off the property line, can you channel the drainage from the wall perpendicular to the wall within the 5 feet? Maybe to the street.

 

[LOTE]

bimr - The low-point of the wall is at the opposite corner from the street. The wall is U-shaped at the back of the property at the low-point with the street at the front being the high point.

 

[swazimatt]

Agree with EireChrch, but if your council is stubborn are you able to collect all the weepholes in a susbsoil pipe behind the wall with almost no fall and run that back to the street or directly into the stormwater connection, will be more expensive, but i have done this on a retaing wall on a long split-level building

 

[geotechguy1]

This seems to be some kind of global re-occurring mis-understanding by local governments / councils. Across two countries every local / municipal government I've dealt with has thrown a temper tantrum about weep holes in retaining walls and considered them to be equivalent to stormwater drainage.

 

[bimr]

bimr - The low-point of the wall is at the opposite corner from the street. The wall is U-shaped at the back of the property at the low-point with the street at the front being the high point.

If that is the situation, then install a simple pipe manifold to collect the drainage from the weep holes and route the piping to a french drain at the low point.

 

[LittleInch]

Until you can show that whatever you build would never, ever deposit water on your neighbours property, they will take the line that its not acceptable, regardless of whether it makes things better than it is now.

Given that you probably cannot say now how much water will come out, I think you're on a hiding to nothing without adding some sort of drain to take away the water.

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