The yard that stays soggy
A low area that never dries, kills grass in the same spot every year and cannot be mowed for days after a storm.
Drainage Solutions
Yard Drainage That Handles a Gulf Coast Downpour
If your yard is still wet three days after a storm, the problem is not the rain. It is where the water has to go.
The Three Calls We Get
Water in the wrong place, in three flavors
Water against the house
Downspouts dumping at the foundation, a slab or crawlspace taking on water, mulch washing out of the beds by the front door.
Washouts on a slope
Gullies cut through the yard, mulch and pine straw in the driveway, and soil piling up against a wall every time it rains hard.
What We Install
The tools we actually use
- French drains — perforated pipe in stone, set to fall, taken somewhere it can leave
- Catch basins and solid pipe to collect standing water and move it
- Downspout tie-ins that carry roof water away instead of releasing it at the corner of the house
- Regrading and swales, which fix more yards than pipe does
- Dry creek beds where the water route can be part of the landscape
- Sump and pop-up emitter outlets on flat lots with nowhere obvious to send it
Draining Here
Flat ground, heavy rain, high water
This county gets rain in quantities that would be a news story somewhere else. Several inches in an hour is a normal summer afternoon, and hurricane season can put down more than that in a day. A yard that handles a light rain fine can still turn into a pond in ninety minutes.
What makes it worse is how flat a lot of it is. Around Foley, Robertsdale and Silverhill there is not much fall to work with, so a drain line has to be planned carefully to keep enough slope to move water at all. Closer to the coast the water table sits high, which limits how deep a drain does any good. On the Eastern Shore the opposite problem shows up: enough slope that water arrives fast and cuts a channel through the yard on the way down.
The other thing worth saying plainly: drainage is the least glamorous money you will ever spend on a property and the most likely to protect everything else you spent. Patios, walls, sod and beds all fail first where the water sits.
Questions
Drainage, honestly
Where does the water actually go?
Somewhere lower than where it is now, and off your property in a way that does not dump it on a neighbor. Depending on the lot that means daylighting at a slope, tying into a street or ditch line where that is allowed, or a dry well. We work that out on site, because it is the part that determines whether the whole plan works.
Will a French drain fix my yard?
Sometimes. Sometimes the answer is regrading and a French drain is money spent on the wrong problem. Standing water can come from grade, from compacted ground, from downspouts dumping in one spot, or from your neighbor’s yard. We would rather find the cause than sell you pipe.
How long does drainage work take?
Most residential drainage jobs are a day or two of machine work plus cleanup and grass repair. It is disruptive while it is happening and quiet forever after — which is why it is the best thing to do before you sod or build a patio, not after.
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Ready to get started?
Tell us what you have in mind and we will come walk the property. Estimates are free, and you will talk to Myles — not a call center. Or tap the chat bubble; messages go straight to Myles.