Yard Drainage

Usually one of four things: the yard has a low spot with no outlet, the grade falls the wrong way, roof and gutter runoff is being dumped in one place, or the soil is compacted clay that has stopped accepting water. Which one it is decides the fix, so it is worth having it looked at rather than guessed.

There is no single best solution. It depends on whether the water has nowhere to go or is simply arriving faster than the ground can take it. Where there is no outlet, a French drain or catch basin system moves it. Where the ground tips the wrong way, regrading is the real fix. Many Houston yards need both.

It is priced by the foot and by the part rather than as a lump sum, so you can see what you are paying for. Every run is a trench plus a pipe, which is $10 per foot for the trench and from $6 per foot for corrugated, so $16 per foot is the minimum. A 9 by 9 catch basin is $210 and a downspout connection is $150. A sixty foot run with corrugated pipe and one 9 by 9 catch basin is therefore around $1,170 before any upgrades. Quotes by phone, video or online are free, and on-site estimates are free inside Loop 610, $50 inside Beltway 8 and $100 beyond and the itemised figure comes before the work. One-off jobs carry a mobilization fee on those same zones.

They are priced by size. A 6 inch is $100, a 9 by 9 is $210, a 12 by 12 is $250, a 24 by 24 by 24 built French drain style with rock around it is $800, and a 24 inch is $1,000. A filter adds $100 to any of them. Size follows the volume the basin has to take: a small 6 inch handles a single low spot, while a wide area collecting off a roof and a slope needs something that will not back up in a Houston downpour. We size it on the visit rather than defaulting to the largest.

Four things, all priced per foot. A built French drain with aggregate and fabric adds $20. Upgrading the pipe adds $10 for SDR 4 inch or $14 for PVC schedule 40. Heavy roots add $5 because the trench takes longer to cut. And six inch pipe instead of four raises everything by 50 percent, which is worth knowing before choosing it. Getting under a driveway or path by breaking and repairing the concrete is $100 per foot, and cutting into a curb to discharge is $300.

Four inch is standard and handles most properties. Six inch is for a lot of yard, or several downspouts running a long way, where the volume genuinely needs the capacity. It carries about one and a half times the drainage, and it costs about one and a half times as much in labour and material, so the rate per unit of capacity works out effectively the same. You are not paying a premium for six inch, you are paying for more drain. That is also why it is worth being told whether your yard actually needs it rather than being sold it by default.

It is worth taking seriously. Houston's clay soils expand when wet and shrink when dry, and repeatedly soaking the ground on one side of a house is not something to leave indefinitely. Moving roof runoff away and correcting the fall near the house are usually the first things to look at.

Trenching disturbs the ground it crosses, so part of the job is putting it back: backfilling correctly, restoring turf or beds, and leaving the surface level. That restoration is part of the scope, not an extra.