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Innovative Technology Improves Residential Water Management07-08-15 | News

Innovative Technology Improves Residential Water Management

GrassGrid offers a surface strong enough to withstand vehicles' load, while allowing for easy water drainage. Products help conserve water and protect hardscapes in residential construction applications. Photo: ACO Systems, Ltd.

Effective drainage plays a critical role in residential landscaping and property design. It helps to protect homeowners' investment in their homes by diverting excess water from driveways, patios and surrounding soil. The house itself and any paved areas of the property surrounding the house prevent rainwater that falls from being absorbed into the ground directly beneath it.

That water can collect in exceedingly large quantities. If the soil at these points does not have the capacity to handle the amount of water it collects, underground water levels can rise.

This leads to flooded basements, mold and moisture inside the house and building materials. Subsequent soil changes may cause, in extreme cases, foundation settlement. Well-designed drainage systems can help homeowners to avoid these costly consequences.

Drainage is in fact just one aspect of water management. Water management applies to the entire earth-bound natural water cycle. In the context of residential applications, this includes surface and subsurface collection (including drainage), cleaning, holding and release of water.

The goals of residential water management should include minimizing interruption to the natural water cycle, reducing the likelihood of flooding from storm events, minimizing the effects of drought and positively impacting landscape aesthetics.

Residential water management technology tends to be lighter-duty than its commercial counterparts, with a greater ease of installation and lower costs. Even so, there exists a range of residential water management technology on the market.

Some truly innovative technologies achieve these water management goals through optimized design, minimizing paved areas, and using stormwater retention and gradual infiltration. They allow construction companies and contractors to easily improve water collection, storage, and release on residential properties. This ends up helping to protect customers' investment in their homes.

The general purpose of drainage technology in any setting is to collect water in one area and transport it to another area to be cleaned, held or released. Most drainage solutions on the market feature basin-style drains. This style of drain requires that water be drawn towards a single point using a funnel-shaped surface. Water then falls through the grate into a catch basin, and is piped away to the sewer, a hold basin or back to nature.

In residential settings, drains that can act as a physical barrier to water provide an extra layer of protection against damage to homes. Basin-style drains do not act as a physical barrier to water given that they generally only have a small grate on a paved surface. However, modular trench drains do act as a physical barrier.

This type of drain was introduced to the North American water management market by ACO Polymer Products over 30 years ago. Rather than gathering water at a single point, trench drains are long, linear drains that gather water along their entire length. When placed between a driveway and a house, for instance, these drains are both a physical barrier to stormwater running off of the paved driveway, as well as a means of gathering water along the edge of the entire paved surface and diverting it from the house, foundation, and surrounding soil. For more information go to www.acousa.com.