French Drain Installation in Millersburg, KY

Hinkston Creek and the bottoms

Hinkston Creek runs along Millersburg on its way north to join Stoner Creek and form the South Fork of the Licking River, so like Paris, Millersburg's water leaves the Bluegrass toward the Licking rather than the Kentucky. Properties in the creek bottoms have alluvial soil with a water table that rises with the creek, and an outlet that may be underwater when the creek is high. Drainage on those lots means collecting water and lifting it, or holding it until the creek drops, rather than relying on a gravity outlet that is sometimes submerged.

Up the slope from the creek, the ground is Inner Bluegrass limestone with the thin silt loam over clay that the USDA-NRCS describes for the region's soils, and the Kentucky Geological Survey's karst rule applies: a depression that swallows water is a connection to groundwater, not an outlet.

Nineteenth-century houses on deep lots

Millersburg's Main Street and the blocks around the old Millersburg Military Institute campus are lined with houses from the 1800s: brick and frame, stone foundations, cellars that hold water every wet spring, and yards that run deep to alleys and back lots. The deep lots are an advantage. There is room for a swale to carry water to the alley or the rear, room to regrade so the house sheds water, and room to daylight a downspout line far from the foundation.

The cellars are the challenge. Water enters low, through stone walls and dirt or old concrete floors. Getting roof water and yard water away from the house solves the seasonal flooding for many of them; the ones that still take water need an interior drain and a sump with a discharge line carried well out into the yard.

Alleys as outlets, and the value of a long lot

Millersburg's old town plat gives most houses a long run from the front street to a rear alley, and that run is the best drainage asset in town. A swale along one side line can carry water the full depth of the lot to the alley without a pipe. Downspouts on the back of the house can go underground straight to the alley; downspouts on the front can go to the street. And a low spot in the middle of a deep yard, which on a small Lexington lot would need a basin and a pump, in Millersburg often just needs regrading to reach one end or the other.

The flip side is that alleys receive water from every lot on the block, and where an alley has settled or been paved without a crown, it can send water back into the yards it is supposed to drain. Part of the assessment is checking which way the alley falls and whether it is a real outlet for your lot or another source of water. Bourbon County's Inner Bluegrass soils - silt loam over clay, per the USDA-NRCS descriptions of the regional series - and a normal year of roughly 50 inches of rain per the NWS mean a deep lot collects a lot of water; giving it a long, gentle path to leave is the whole game.

Assessment in Millersburg

Millersburg is near the outer edge of the service area, and assessments there are free and done on site. The plan covers where your lot sits relative to the creek, how much fall you have to the alley or street, where the downspouts go now, and what the outlet will be. If the answer is grading and downspout lines rather than a drain, that is what it says.