Our government and individual citizens spend billions of dollars managing stormwater, and for good reason, water is powerful and can quickly cause serious property damage when cities and structures are not properly designed for big precipitation events. Luckily you have the power to mange stormwater on your own property. Following the design principles of permaculture you can be sure that stormwater doesn't cause any damage, and you can even use it to your advantage, by harvesting it.
In a future blog we will discuss the intricacies of designing stormwater management systems and how to harvest the water, but for this blog we want to show you just one design element that can be used in many situations.
This example will show the construction of a drainage system on the uphill side of the cob house we are currently constructing. We bury rocks that are wrapped inside a blanket of landscape cloth to facilitate drainage away from the house.
Pictures are in sequence, from beginning to end.
We built a small rock wall to serve as the support (stem wall) for our cob walls.
We lay down landscape cloth. The left side of the cloth is already set up as a drainage with pipe and rocks that leads away from the house.
Put about 6-8 inches of medium sized roundish rocks onto the middle of the cloth. Be careful rocks aren't sharp or they can puncture the cloth.
Wrap rocks like a burrito. Put a little soil on it to hold closed.
Cover up with soil. We used decomposed granite so when the ground is wet around the house it will be easy to walk on.
Pause to watch the sunset.
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