Yard Drainage Solutions

Every drainage job answers two questions: where is the water coming from, and where is it allowed to go. Skipping the second question is why so many drainage installations fail — a French drain that dead-ends into clay is just a buried trench full of wet stone. We walk the property, look at roof area and downspout discharge, check the grade against the foundation, find the low points and the outlet options, and design a system that actually daylights or reaches a dry well sized for the volume.

Most residential problems are solved with a handful of proven components. Buried downspout extensions carry roof water well away from the foundation instead of dumping it at the corner of the house. A properly built French drain — perforated pipe in clean washed stone, wrapped in filter fabric, sloped continuously to an outlet — intercepts subsurface water and the sheet flow crossing a yard. Channel drains catch water at the edge of a patio, driveway or garage apron. Dry wells give roof and surface water a place to infiltrate where there is no daylight outlet available. Regrading and a cut swale handle the rest.

Details determine whether the system lasts. Filter fabric has to wrap the stone, not the pipe alone, or silt clogs the aggregate. Slope has to be continuous — a single flat run traps water and grows roots. Outlets need pop-up emitters or animal guards so they do not become a rodent entrance. And the discharge point has to be on your property or into an approved outlet rather than aimed at a neighbor. We restore the lawn or beds over every trench when the work is done, so a finished drainage job is one you cannot see.