11/14/2022 6:11 AM
I have been researching them for aver a year now. I can help with a few things. but this is my opinions from my findings.
Pro's is the drain exceptionally well but use the perched water system to work. This causes them to sometimes leave the sand a little damper then desired. I think this may also be one of the reasons we do not see as much wash out with this system. I live in New Orleans and we get 60"-100" a year. over the last five years we have constantly received over 1" of rain over 50% of the time. I feel this is the best fit for my course due to the amount of rain.
personally I would love to have the rubber bottom but I prefer the 2" depth of the pea gravel then the slight layer of the rubber. I am looking for my water to get to the drain lines as fast as possible and this is how you move1" +. I have personally seen these bunkers installed and I think if we can just add a little more sand in the build that it would be easier to upkeep by going in every so many years and removing 3" and replacing it while leaving a good layer of clean sand over the pea gravel bottom (during removal). I cannot tell you how long they last but if kept up and the use of proper sand exchanging over the years I can see the bottoms lasting 20-30 years. its the lips that always gives us issues by washing out or eroding away.
I have recently seen something about adding relief trenches on the Better Billy bunker system that cuts out the perched water table. I am looking more into that now.