My attempt to fix a soggy lawn with a kiddie pool actually worked

So my backyard in Portland has this one spot that's always a muddy mess, right where the downspout empties. After three straight weekends of trying to dig a French drain and just making a bigger hole, I got desperate. I had an old plastic kiddie pool from my niece's visit, the kind with the fish print on the bottom. I cut the bottom out of it, buried it about a foot down in the soggiest part, filled it with gravel, and put the dirt and grass back on top. It sounds completely stupid, I know. But we got our first big rain since then, and that spot is bone dry. The pool acts like a little holding tank that lets the water sink in slow instead of just sitting. Has anyone else tried a weird hack like this for drainage, or did I just get lucky?

4 comments

4 Comments

lee8473mo agoTop Commenter

Honestly that's genius, you basically built a mini dry well for free.

piper_kim3mo ago

My neighbor's sump pump failed last year, and his basement turned into a kiddie pool.

karen_sanchez493mo ago

Thanks lee847, but it was more like a desperate attempt to stop my basement from flooding. I'm just glad it sort of worked.

the_anthony28d ago

That plastic pipe from the hardware store costs about 5 bucks and would make that setup last way longer. @lee847 is right that the concept works fine, but wrapping some landscape fabric around the gravel stops dirt from clogging it up over time. If you drill more holes along the sides of the bucket before burying it, the water drains even faster.