Catch basin installed in a lawn to collect surface water

Drainage · 6 min read

Fixing standing water in a Carolina yard

Water is the most common thing we are called about, and the most commonly mis-diagnosed. Start with where it comes from, not where it sits.

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Introduction

Standing water is the most common problem we get called about, and it is the one most often treated in the wrong place. People point at the puddle. The puddle is the symptom — the cause is almost always uphill of it.

On Piedmont clay this is worse than it would be on sandy soil, because clay drains slowly. Water that would soak away in an hour somewhere else sits on our ground for a day.

(01)

Find out where the water is actually coming from

Before anything gets dug, work out the source. In our experience it is nearly always one of five things, and the fix is completely different for each.

Roof water: downspouts discharging next to the foundation
Neighbouring ground: runoff arriving from a higher property
Grade: ground that falls toward the house rather than away
Compaction: soil pressed hard by construction traffic that no longer absorbs
A hardscape surface with nowhere to shed to

(02)

Start with the cheapest fix: your downspouts

A single downspout can deliver a startling volume of water to one spot in a storm. If yours discharge at the foundation and the ground there is soggy, that is your answer and it is an inexpensive one.

Piping downspouts underground and taking them out to daylight or into a drainage system solves a surprising share of the yard problems we are called about, and it costs a fraction of what people expect to spend.

(03)

Grading: the fix that solves rather than relocates

Where ground falls the wrong way, regrading is the honest fix. You want a fall away from the house — a modest but consistent slope over the first several feet is the standard rule of thumb.

The trap here is moving the problem to your neighbour. Water has to go somewhere legitimate, and pushing it onto the property next door is both bad practice and a good way to end up in a dispute. Any grading plan needs an actual destination.

(04)

French drains and catch basins: what each is for

These get used interchangeably in conversation, and they do different jobs.

A catch basin is a collection point for water already pooling on the surface. A grate, a box, and a pipe leading away. It is the right answer for a low spot that collects.

A French drain is a perforated pipe in a gravel trench that intercepts water moving through the soil, before it reaches the place it is causing trouble. It is the right answer for a slope feeding water down toward a house or patio.

Both need somewhere to discharge. A drain that runs to a dead end is a buried puddle.

Catch basin: collects surface water from a low spot
French drain: intercepts subsurface water on a slope
Both need a real outlet with fall to it
Neither works if it silts up — fabric and clean stone matter

(05)

Where hardscape helps rather than hurts

A badly planned patio makes drainage worse. A well planned one can improve it, because it is a chance to design falls deliberately rather than inheriting whatever the builder left.

Permeable paver systems let water through the surface into a stone reservoir beneath, rather than shedding it somewhere else. On a lot that is already struggling with runoff, that is a real advantage. Every <a href="/paver-patios">patio we build</a> gets its falls designed in, and where drainage work is needed we would rather do it as part of the project than come back to it.

(06)

What we look at on a site visit

A drainage assessment is mostly observation. Where does the ground fall, where do the downspouts go, where has the grass thinned or the moss taken hold, where is there silt left behind after a storm. Those marks tell you where the water travels when nobody is watching.

Our <a href="/yard-drainage-solutions">yard drainage service</a> starts there rather than with a catalogue of products.

(07) Questions

Asked often.

Can I just fill in the low spot with topsoil? +

Rarely a lasting fix. If water is arriving faster than the ground can absorb, filling the low spot moves the puddle a few feet. It is worth doing only once the water arriving there is dealt with.

How deep does a French drain need to be? +

It depends on what it is intercepting and how much fall is available to the outlet. What matters more than a fixed depth is continuous fall along its length and somewhere legitimate to discharge.

Will drainage work damage my lawn? +

There is disturbance along the trench lines during the work, and it does recover. We keep runs as tight as the design allows and reinstate as we go.

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