Drywell grate coverup


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Old 07-23-17, 11:57 AM
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Drywell grate coverup

A year in a half ago, in order to rectify a problem created by a street-raising project, the town installed three dry wells in our side yard. They are connected to each other via one-way valves, the final well connected to the catch basin in the street, itself connected (via a one-way valve) to the bay.

The wells don't quite work as advertised (the work, by Three Stooges Construction, wasn't pitched very well). But there are two bigger problems:
1) they're ugly,
2) they're mosquito breeding grounds. Despite the name they're not "dry": they always have standing water at the bottom. A big part of this is due to a very high water table here. I've periodically added "Mosquito Bits" (biological control for the larvae) but that doesn't work so well.

So far I've done what you can see in the pictures below: added plastic mesh, then covered with rocks. That did something for the aesthetics, but I can't for the life of me think of what to do to about the mosquitos: anything I do to keep the mosquitos from getting in to lay eggs (or the fully grown mosquitos from escaping) would also prevent water from draining down. Maybe not immediately (i.e., in the case of mosquito-proof screening) but soon enough once any netting gets covered with dirt, leaves, and the like.

Any ideas?

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Old 07-23-17, 12:04 PM
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Funny.... I've seen that construction crew around here too.

The biggest problem is that there isn't much room for system pitch based on proximity. That's one reason why there is always water in the basins.

A 1/4 cup of baby oil or cooking oil after a heavy rain will keep the mosquitoes from breeding down there. It floats on the water and suffocates them. Dish detergent also works well and doesn't allow the larvae to float on the water.
 
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Old 07-23-17, 03:45 PM
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I'm chiefly looking for some sort of covering, assuming that's possible. I have three such dry wells on my land, and that's a lot of baby- or cooking oil to keep tossing in (we have rain forecast for 7 out of the next 10 days alone here). With the way they set it up those drywalls are draining quite a bit of land... not draining it properly, mind you, but there's a good amount of water flow even in mild rains.

Any such well around here will have water in it; the last time I dug a post hole I hit water in about 1.5 to 2 feet.
 
 

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