I had a section of my backyard that turned into a river during heavy rain. Then the water pooled for a while less than 10 feet from my house and finally made its way along the "path of least resistance" into my basement.
After listening to the advice from several people I decided to create a Dry Well.
The basic concept of a dry well is to collect and redirect rain underground and allow it to filter its way to an area further away from buildings.

Step 1: Material

For this project we used:

A roll of "separator" fabric - Home despot, yard center, Lowes...
15 ft of 6 inch pvc
Pvc fittings (90s..)
3/4 in gravel. I could have used bigger gravel but I had this on hand.
A drill and 1/2inch bit
A shovel.
Enough time to dig a big hole....
A 55 gallon barrel.

Step 2: Diggin' 1

First I dug a 1ft X 1ft trench and covered it with the separator fabric. The fabric was not really necessary but my companion thought it would be neater... I am sure the worms appreciate....
the trench has a slight slope to it (1inch for every 4 ft). Of course the path of the trench is away from the house so the dry well is going to be about 20ft from the nearest wall.

Step 3: The Barrel

I don't have a picture of this but this is an important step:
I drilled 1/2 inch holes every 10 inch on the barrel. T'hat's about 5 rows of 6 holes per row. I did not drill the bottom of the barrel. When it's all done, the barrel will be upside down with the bottom facing up.

Step 4: More Diggin'

Then I dug a big hole 4ft in diameter, about 5ft deep. I lined the whole with separator fabric. This is useful: it prevents too much silt and dirt to mix with the gravel that could later clog up the barrel.

Step 5: Fill It Up

Then I placed 6 inch of 1 inch gravel at the bottom of the hole.
I connected the end of the PVC pipe snug with the big hole near the "bottom" of the barrel.
THE BARREL WILL REMAIN EMPTY THUS ALLOWING EXCESS WATER TO GATHER IN IT BEFORE DISPERSING THROUGH THE GRAVEL THEN THE SOIL
I placed the barrel upside down and carefully filled the area around it with more gravel (3/4inch).
finaly, I covered the barrel with gravel, covered the whole thing with separator fabric and then added 4 inch of soil and sod