Create your own stormwater management plan?

Question

Just curious if anyone has any experience creating their own storm water management plans?

I own a 10.55 acre farm field in PA where I'm looking to put down a large gravel pad. I will use the pad to park portable storage units to rent. In this town, if you want to put a gravel pad down that exceeds 5,000 square feet you need a storm water management plan. Luckily, the field is already quite flat.

I'm having a survey done on the property, so I will have that to work from. Engineering quotes were outrageous for creating the plan and if I understand correctly I don't think they are rocket science.

The founder of Spanx was able to figure out a way to write her own patents, so I'm hoping I can figure out how to create my own storm water management plan for putting down a basic gravel pad.

Thanks everyone!

Ronald Rohde · Answer

How much time do you have to learn about runoff? If you want to learn about the engineering, I'd say go ahead. You can learn, file, pay fees, get rejected, re-apply as many times as you want.

Just because it doesn't appear complicated, doesn't mean its easy. There is still plenty of math calculations here...

Matt Williams · Answer

@Nick Heil @Chris Seveney

I think Chris hit the nail on the head. I've seen hand sketched site plans approved but these calculations are much more involved. Not only will an engineer do it right, you are probably dead in the water without one.

Jim Adrian · Answer

@Nick Heil

There are a lot hoops to jump thru and you could be jumping thru the wrong ones. City, county or state regulations may all be different as you need to know which ones apply. Pay to have the work done. There is a lot of behind the scene phone calling that takes place. The stormwater plan may need to be submitted by a licensed civil engineer too.

Example...

Replacing side walks on a city property that is out side the city limits just added 2 weeks to the project. Falls under state jurisdiction not county. The client wanted to meet the Cities requirements.

Matthew Paul · Answer

if you are planning all these buildings and a parking lot . Pay the engineer to do the plan to encompass the entire project . Then you are only paying once .

Unless you have equipment , just wait till you see the cost of the dirt work . Big $$$

Matthew Ries · Answer

This may be a silly question, but if it's a cost thing in the short term...could you build multiple pads < 5000 sq ft and avoid the engineering costs/permits?

Nick Heil · Answer

Thanks @Lane Kawaoka. It certainly makes me cringe as well. I'm not trying to discredit or devalue what you guys do, definitely worth every penny.

With this property I fully intent to use engineered plans in the future as I build self storage and boat & RV buildings. I was just hoping I could avoid that sort of investment initially to just put down a large gravel pad (on what is already a rural piece of farmland) for my existing portable storage business to get some quick income going on the property and use that income to invest in the property further.

Jim Adrian · Answer

It never hurts to get a couple different quotes.

Create your own stormwater management plan?

Create your own stormwater management plan?

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