Landscaping services
Yard drainage and grading: find the water first
How to tell where yard water comes from, what the work involves, what belongs in the written scope, and when a French drain is the right answer.
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Written by HyreYard Research Desk Primary-source research and fact checking
The short answer
Grading decides where surface water goes. Drainage handles the water grading cannot reach. Together they protect the foundation, the patio base and any retaining wall, not only the lawn. The right fix depends on where the water comes from: roof, slope, soil or subsurface flow. Find that before anyone prices a French drain.
If this is happening now
Water standing against a foundation wall, running into a crawl space or basement, or showing up indoors after rain is a building problem first.
Stop the source you can reach: a disconnected downspout, an overflowing gutter or a blocked area drain. Then have the ground next to the wall looked at. Repeated soaking against a foundation does not fix itself.
What should you know before you pay for drainage?
A French drain answers one problem. Priced before anyone knows where the water comes from, it is a guess at a fixed price.
Roof water, driveway runoff, a neighbor’s slope and subsurface flow can all end in the same wet patch, and each has a different fix.
A dry well depends on ground that accepts water. In group D soil, the highest-runoff group, it can fill and stay full.
Water led away by shaping the ground never enters a pipe, so it cannot block, silt up or need cleaning.
Find a landscaping company for drainage or grading
Free, with no obligation: a person at HyreYard replies by email. Matching is not live yet, so this is not a quote. If a tree or limb is on a power line, stay away and call the utility.
What is your yard telling you?
Water leaves evidence specific enough to narrow the cause before anyone digs. Walk the yard during rain, not after it.
The ground has nowhere to send it or cannot absorb it. One is a grade problem, the other a soil problem.
An old utility trench, a buried pipe that leaks, or loose trench backfill that settled into a low point.
Concentrated surface flow. Follow the channel uphill to the source, such as a downspout, a driveway edge or a neighbor’s slope.
The same flow, with the evidence moved to where the water goes.
Chronic saturation rather than one storm: subsurface water or a compacted layer, which lawn renovation treats by aeration.
Backfill has settled, so roof and surface water now runs down the wall instead of away from it.
Water reaching the wall from outside. The symptom is indoors; the fix can be outdoors.
Water moving under the base. The patio is the victim, not the cause.
Which problem is “the yard floods”?
Several problems get one name and one quote. They have different causes, fixes and prices, and telling them apart is the diagnosis.
| Problem | How to tell, and what fixes it |
|---|---|
| Roof water | Downspouts emptying at the wall or a few feet from it. The simplest to fix: extend or reroute the discharge. |
| Surface flow from upslope | Water crossing the ground from a neighbor’s lot, a driveway or a higher slope. Intercept and redirect it with a swale, berm or graded route. |
| Ground falling toward the house | Settled backfill has left the soil sloping toward the wall. Regrading to restore the fall away from the house is the fix. |
| Soil that will not absorb | Heavy clay, a compacted construction layer or a high water table. Infiltration will not work, so water has to be moved sideways. Clay that also swells is covered in expansive soils and hardscape. |
| Sprinklers | Standing water the morning after a scheduled watering is an irrigation setting, not a soil problem. |
| Subsurface flow | Water moving through the ground and surfacing where a layer changes or the slope breaks. This is what an interceptor drain is for. |
| Failed existing drainage | A pipe, area drain or dry well already there that is silted, crushed, full of roots or never had an outlet. Check before adding a second system. |
What should a contractor establish before proposing anything?
A proposal written without these answers has priced a product, not a fix.
Roof, paving, upslope ground, subsurface, or several at once, seen during rain rather than guessed afterward.
Every design ends at an outlet that sits lower than the system, somewhere discharge is allowed.
The free USDA Web Soil Survey shows your mapped hydrologic soil group, which decides whether water can go into the ground at all.
Measured with levels, not eyeballed, including how far soil has settled against the walls.
Old drains, sump discharge lines and irrigation mains, found before the trencher finds them.
A new driveway, an addition, a removed tree or a neighbor’s regrade. A yard that was dry and is now wet has a reason.
Moving water off your lot onto a neighbor’s can become a legal dispute, not just a courtesy question.
Work near a stream, wetland or floodplain can bring in separate rules. Your local authority answers that, not the contractor.
How is a drainage problem fixed?
Order matters. Each step can remove the need for the next, and a job that starts with a trench has skipped the cheaper fixes.
Someone walks the yard during rain, or works from your photos and video taken then. This is the only step that produces direct evidence.
The soil group decides whether water can go into the ground. The outlet decides where it goes if not. A design with no named outlet is unfinished.
Levels are taken around the house and across the wet area, so the fall is a number rather than an impression.
Downspouts are extended, rerouted or piped so roof water leaves well away from the house. Try it and watch a storm before trenching.
Soil is built back up so it falls away from the foundation, while staying below the siding and any weep holes.
Swales, berms and graded paths lead water around and away. Where the ground allows one, a swale needs no pipe and cannot clog.
A trench, clean stone, perforated pipe laid to a steady fall, a filter fabric and a named outlet. Each is a line in the written scope.
Trenches are backfilled and compacted, turf and beds are put back, and the system is watched in the next real storm.
What do the NRCS soil groups rule out?
The USDA class your mapped soil falls into, free to look up on the Web Soil Survey. It tells you quickly whether putting water into the ground is realistic on your lot.
| Soil group | What it means |
|---|---|
| Group A: low runoff runoff | Deep sands and gravelly sands. Water goes down. |
| Group B: moderately low runoff | Moderately well to well drained, moderate texture. |
| Group C: moderately high runoff | A layer that impedes downward movement, or finer texture. |
| Group D: high runoff runoff | Clays with high shrink-swell, a high water table, a claypan, or shallow soil over near-impervious material. |
Dry wells, rain gardens and infiltration trenches depend on ground that accepts water, which is likelier in groups A and B. The survey is a map, not a test of your lot: use it to frame the conversation, not to settle it. Our soil drainage and yard flooding study covers the drainage classes in full.
What belongs in the written scope for drainage?
Once drainage is finished there is nothing to inspect. The paper describing it is the only proof it was built right. A proposal that names a product and a price but none of this has not been designed.
Where the water comes from, and the evidence the conclusion rests on.
Exactly where it daylights or connects, and that it sits lower than the system. “To daylight” with no location is not an outlet.
The slope the pipe or swale is laid to, and how it is checked during the work.
Depth and width along the run.
Clean, open-graded stone, named. Fill gravel with fines in it does not drain.
Between the stone and the soil, so fines cannot wash in and clog the trench over a few seasons.
Diameter, and where it is perforated or solid.
Access points so the system can be flushed when it silts.
Trenches refilled in compacted lifts, so the trench line does not settle into the lawn’s new low point.
The fall being restored, and how far soil stays below the siding and weep holes.
Where the water ends up, and confirmation that discharging there is allowed.
What happens to turf, beds and paving the work crosses, and who pays.
The same buried-work argument applied to patios and walls is on the hardscape base specification.
Call 811 before anyone digs
Drainage trenches run long and can cross gas, power, water and communication lines.
811 is the free national before-you-dig service. Request marks, and the utilities flag or paint their lines before digging starts.
Write it into the scope with a date, so the trench waits for the marks.
Deep, narrow trenches can collapse. Keep children and pets away until they are backfilled.
What moves the price of drainage work?
Drainage is priced on how much ground moves, how far the water has to be carried, and how much has to be restored afterward.
| Factor | Why it changes the number |
|---|---|
| Surface or subsurface | Regrading and a swale move earth. Trench, stone, pipe, fabric and restoration is a larger job. A diagnosis that allows the surface fix saves money. |
| Distance to the outlet | Every foot between the problem and a lower, allowed outlet is trench, stone, pipe and backfill. A flat lot is harder than a sloping one. |
| Depth | Set by the fall the design needs. Deeper trenches mean more digging, more spoil and more care with trench walls. |
| Soil and obstructions | Rock, roots, clay and old construction debris slow the trencher down. |
| What the run crosses | A trench under a driveway, patio or wall means taking it out and rebuilding it in the middle of a drainage job. |
| Restoration | Turf, beds and planting put back afterward. In a mature garden this can rival the drainage itself. |
| Spoil and access | Excavated soil leaves by truck for a fee, and hand-digging through a narrow gate changes the labor line. |
| Design and permits | Levels, a real diagnosis, sometimes an engineer’s opinion, and any local grading or discharge permit. |
HyreYard publishes no national average price for this work. Regional labor, material and disposal rates, access and soil move it far enough that a single figure would mislead.
Offered a French drain first? Ask what the diagnosis was.
A French drain fits a narrow problem: water that must be caught below the surface, on ground with somewhere lower to send it.
Before you buy one, ask where the water comes from, what the soil group is, where the outlet is, and why a surface fix was ruled out. A contractor who answers all four clearly has done the diagnosis.
What to ask before you sign
And what did you see that tells you so?
Or are you working from a dry-day visit?
Can water go into the ground at all?
Is that point lower than the pipe along its whole length?
And what does it do to my neighbor’s lot?
Regrading, a swale or longer downspouts.
And how is it checked during the work?
Where are the access points?
What to have ready before a site visit
Photos and video during heavy rain and an hour after. Nobody can reconstruct this on a dry day.
Where water stands, how deep, and how long it takes to go.
Where each one discharges, and any that are disconnected or end near the wall.
Look up your address on the Web Soil Survey before anyone proposes putting water into the ground.
The lowest spot on the lot, and whether anything lower is available as an outlet.
A new driveway, an addition, a removed tree or a neighbor’s regrade.
Where does drainage work go wrong?
A French drain built to fix a downspout problem carries roof water that should never have been in the ground.
Pipe laid to nowhere, or to a point no lower than itself, is a buried reservoir.
In high-runoff soil the hole can fill, stay full and become the wettest spot on the lot.
Fines in the stone, or soil washing in without fabric, clog the trench. It fails slowly and looks the same from above.
An uncompacted trench settles into the lowest line in the lawn, and the drain collects water it created.
Restoring the fall is right. Burying the bottom of the siding or the weep holes to get it is not.
Your inquiry
Tell us about the work
Nothing goes to a landscaping company unless you agree.
Free, with no obligation: a person at HyreYard reads your request and replies by email. Matching is not live yet, so this is not a quote, and nothing goes to a landscaping company unless you agree. If a tree or limb is on a power line, stay away and call the utility.
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Questions
Do I need a French drain?
Why does my yard flood when it never used to?
How do I find out what my soil is?
Is grading or drainage more important?
How much should the ground slope away from a house?
Can I fill the wet spot with topsoil?
Will drainage work damage my lawn and planting?
Is drainage work regulated?
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HyreYard Research Desk
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This page explains the work so you can read a proposal and judge the company that wrote it.