How It Works | Columbia Yard Drainage

Step by step

1. Diagnose the water source

Establish where the water is coming from before designing anything. Roof, hard standing, uphill ground and groundwater are different problems with different solutions.

2. Confirm a legal outfall

Identify where the water will discharge and confirm it is permissible. Discharging onto a neighbor's land is a dispute waiting to happen and in many places is not lawful.

3. Excavate to a consistent fall

Trench cut and graded to a steady slope toward the outfall, checked with a level rather than by eye. Consistency matters more than steepness.

4. Bed, lay and wrap

Washed stone base, perforated pipe with holes oriented per the design, more stone over, and filter fabric enveloping the aggregate to keep fines from migrating in and blinding it.

5. Backfill, connect and reinstate

Downspouts and catch basins connected, trench backfilled, topsoil and turf restored. Ask to see the finished layout photographed before it disappears underground.

What you can do before we arrive

None of this is required — it just makes the visit quicker.

Photograph the yard during and immediately after heavy rain, because that is the only time the problem is visible and it is what a good contractor most wants to see.
Walk the property boundary and note whether water is arriving from uphill or from a neighbor's land, since that changes both the solution and who should pay for it.
Check your downspouts and extend them well away from the foundation first; it is free and it resolves a meaningful share of apparent drainage problems.
Call for utility locates before anyone digs, and locate your own private runs such as irrigation, low-voltage lighting and any septic field.
Find out where water is permitted to discharge locally, and confirm you are not routing it onto adjoining property.
Expect the trench line to settle over the first wet season and plan to top it up rather than treating it as a defect.

How We Work