NDS FWAS24 50 Gal. Flo Stormwater Dry Well System Kit with 3 Side Panels & 1 Cover, Ideal for Rainwater Collection, Black

Works as advertised. Hardest part is digging the hole. The lid feels very strong. Should support a lot of weight if buried at least 1' underground. Bottom is open and put 6" of gravel on the ground before putting it in. Never had a problem with water not going down well.

I just finished the install today, but I’m optimistic the system will help with some of our heavy rains. Before installing, our patio would flood with any large downfall and even the normal sprinkler activity would require drainage near the patio edge.As far as assembly, i took some other reviewers advice and assembled the drum the night before in the garage. I used construction adhesive in the gaps between the three sides, flexing the gap open and putting a bead of adhesive in between before putting a ratchet strap around the middle of the cylinder fully assembled and leaving it on overnight. This helped a ton when i went to start the install the next day. It held together great.The knock outs were hit or miss, but mostly came out easy. I used triple wall pipe, the black fabric sleeve NDS makes to put around the drum, and then heavy duty landscape fabric around the hole and on top of the drum.Everything installed pretty easily and the drum held together nicely while loading the river rock. I stood on the drum lid while we dumped the wheelbarrows of rock in so it would stay in place. I also installed the top drain since our kids do water slides, slip and slides, and play with the hose in the summer in the yard.Overall everything went pretty smooth, just lots of dirt work and measuring.

This product is best understood by examining the assumption not explained to you about its use. And by realizing that NDS is out to make a profit, which means it is not in their best interest to tell you about these assumptions. This does not mean they are selling a defective product. It means that they did not spend a lot of time making the installation fool proof, nor in teaching you what they know. It has some problems. It does not stay together well if it is moved around roughly during installation and the top is hard to fit if the sections are not well aligned and level. It does not need a bottom for a dry well is supposed to dissipate water. If the water won’t dissipate, then having no bottom is also an advantage in that the water can easily seep into the dry well cavity from the bottom. It is a better solution than the traditional dry well hole dug in the ground and filled with gravel, as long as you realize that the plastic dry well cannot prevent by itself the earth around it from collapsing. Which is why they have described layers of drain rock and fabric between it and the dirt walls, which assist in the support of the walls. NDS assumes you have determined your soil will drain. Obvious, sort of. You must determine if the soil at the location you want to install the dry well can drain water. The only way to determine that is to dig a hole deep enough for the proposed dry well and see if: 1. The test hole fills with water. 2. If the test hole does not then add water and see how long it takes to dissipate from the hole. If the surrounding soil does pull water from the hole, then more than likely following the NDS installation requirements will work. They have a set of parameters that must be clarified to determine the size of the dry well on their website which I recommend you review. If not, then the dry well can serve as a container for a sump pump better than a traditional sump pump basin. As the dry well does not come with a bottom, its use allows the installation of a sump pump without requiring any additional effort to allow the water to get into the dry well. You only need a rigid tile to support the pump. In this application, there is no need to cut any holes in the dry well, nor install filter fabric. Without a bottom and the existing slits in the dry well sections, when connected, allow water to seep into the cavity of the dry well. If in the case that the ground will not drain water, this product is still cheaper than a sump pump plastic tank. And if a sump pump tank is used instead, not only will it cost more, but you must drill holes in it to allow the water to seep in and it can not be extended easily by adding additional sections if you are more than 34 inches below grade. You are however required to determine how the sump pump pipe will exit the top of the lid which is not well thought out in the existing lid design, but not impossible. This application is particularly effective when the dry well is required to be placed in soil that has clay. Clay will not drain water, but it will not collapse when the dry well is installed. This means the hole for the dry well does not have to be much bigger than the dry well, certainly not the four feet they recommend. And since the water won't drain, there is no need for filter fabric. The down side is that you will need a sump pump. In my application, just digging the hole for the dry well cut into existing flow patterns in the clay layer found at the dry well depth. The hole I had to dig naturally filled with water because of the reduced pressure caused by the hole. Once I realized that there was water coming from the hole I dug and it would not drain, the dry well became a better choice than a sump pump basin because it is easier to install and is cheaper and can be stacked as my final hole was about 6 feet below grade. As in my application, I had to dig down 5 feet below grade to catch the water that was filling a patio that was located below the grade of the soil it was adjacent to (the single dry well is only 24 inches high, the lid adds another 4 inches which is useless). The dry well allows a lot more water than a hole filled with gravel, as long as you know that the hole will not collapse under the weight of the earth around the dry well. But remember that if the water will not drain from the hole to the surrounding water at a rate greater than the rate the water enters the hole, you will need to include a sump pump in your design.The three dry well sections do not stay together well, unless after installed they are carefully handled. This is because the alignment between the hooks and the slots in each section are not beveled to lock after the pressure of the installation. Any upward movement will unlock the sections. Just make sure that the ground the three sections rest on is reasonably level, and that you are careful in installing the assembled dry well sections. Yes they could have allowed for the addition of at least one screw between the 3 sections, but that would increase their cost. And they don’t listen any better than any other company. Since all 3 sections are the same, the mold to make the plastic is used for all three sections. This reduces the cost of manufacturing. So this is why it is cheaper than other products, but it is still over priced considering my estimate of what their cost is to build it. And what would it cost to add a location for at least one screw on between each section? It would require redoing the mold, and someone would have to convince the chief executive who looks at the cost versus the improvement. Therefore forget the improvement.Last comment. If you need to extend the dry well up, as in a stacked application, it is still cheaper to buy two dry well kits than to buy one dry well kit with a lid and then three additional sections without a lid. I observed that buying 3 sections without the lid was usually over 120 dollars, while buying the kit with 3 sections and lid was about 89 dollars.

Works as intended. Solidly built. I have no doubts it will hold up. I installed multiple of these to take roof rain water run off via underground PVC pipes.

This is a great way to create a large volume dry well. I used zip ties to hold it together after connecting the three pieces. This makes it very easy to work with. Some of the punch outs came out easily while others didn’t. I had to use a drill to make a series of holes around the drain pipe hole in order to punch it out.

well made, very rugged and the shipping was excellent!

Just as described. I do wish that it has a way to fasten the 3 sides together