Serious water drainage problem - HELP!!!

Hoping that I can get some good advice about a drainage/flooding problem that our house has with the driveway.

We bought the house 18 months ago and knew there was a bit of a problem but yesterday the neighbour informed me of the history of the house. The previous owner had such problems with the flooding which caused the electrics to short and the house to be without power for 1 month until it dried out and the electrics could be fixed. She moved and let it to her daughter and a group of students for basically no rent until she sold it to us 2 years later. There is a small channel drain in front of the garage but when it rains heavily apparently water flows into the garage and then into the flat. One a few occassions it has flooded to about 1 metre and the water was needed to be pumped out with a pump for 48 hours.

We had a building inspection but the problem was not picked up.

Basically, the house was build in the late 1960's and the block slopes down to the left. When the house was built they excavated even further to build a double garage and flat/workshop on the bottom. The main house is all on one level and sits above the garage on one end with the ground sloping so that the other end of the main house sits at ground level at the other end.

I had an engineer look at it and tell me that the grate is too small and shallow and the pipe leading to the storm water is too small and close to the surface. He suggested a new grate and bigger pipe.

We have not had any really big downpours but the garage has flooded to about 5 cm during heavy downpours twice in the last 18months which basically makes it a useless space. I am especially worried about the electrics being flooded etc.

We were thinking of ripping up the driveway as the concrete is in a really bad state and then paving. We also thought to put in the biggest channel we can find(commercial grade?) and get the pipe replaced with a bigger pipe and lay it deeper. We also thought to put in a rainwater tank as one of the main downpipes (the house only has 4) is just next to the grate and is piped directly into the storm water drain.

I am feeling stressed about the problem and have had a few plumbers look at the drain but they don't really know the answer. One started talking about digging up the whole backyard which was going to cost about $10 000 (and that is without the new paving/drive which is going to cost around $12 000 alone. If we spend $22 000 then we will have very little money to revamp the really bad interior of the house.

Is this a fixable problem? Does anyone have experience in fixing this and how much did it cost? Should we just sell and move?


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