You may recognize the video below showing 4,000 liters of water drain from a cement truck and disappear into a pervious concrete parking lot. This viral video, from the UK firm Lafarge Tarmac, is a great representative of how fast pervious concrete can infiltrate water.
The internet has been calling this pervious concrete "Super permeable" and Magical." If you agree, you don't have to travel to the UK to see it or have it! Bay Area Pervious Concrete has been installing super pervious concrete management systems since 2008. The infiltration rates for Bay Area Pervious Concrete installations are between 700 to 1500 inches of water per hour! This video shows how pervious concrete can help eliminate urban flooding from flash events, but how does pervious concrete handle longer water events - like heavy rain storms? Watch the video below to find out.
Heavy rain events require stormwater systems to not only handle a lot of water, but also have enough capacity to capture it over a long period of time. A real life test of pervious concrete. In our Stormwater Sleuthing video David compares two driveways after at least 12 hours of steady rainfall. As you can see from the comparison of the pervious concrete driveway as compared to the asphalt driveway - there is zero runoff from the pervious concrete. All the water has been infiltrated, rather than runoff into the local storm drain. This eliminates hazardous slick surfaces, recharges groundwater and reduces the stress on urban infrastructure and pollutants entering our waterways.
If you would like to discuss how our pervious concrete stormwater management system can help to eliminate flooding and runoff for your project, please leave a comment or contact us.