Rainfall does not damage property. Rainfall with nowhere to go does.

They are usually the same problem. Grading decides where water goes on the surface; drainage carries what grading cannot move. If water stands in a broad shallow sheet, the grade is flat or reversed. If water moves but arrives somewhere it should not, the routing is wrong. We survey elevations before deciding which one you are paying to fix.

On a lot with positive fall and somewhere for water to go, surface water should be gone within hours of the rain stopping. Water that sits for a day or more is not a soil condition to wait out. It means the low point has no outlet.

No. A French drain intercepts water moving through soil and needs somewhere lower to release it. If the yard is flat, or the water is sheet flow off a patio, or the roof is dumping thousands of gallons into one corner, a French drain alone will underperform. It is one component, not a strategy.

Somewhere lower that legally accepts it: a street, an alley, a swale, a drainage easement, or a point on your own property where discharge does not concentrate onto a neighbor. Outfall availability is the single biggest constraint on a drainage design, and it is the first thing we look for. Where no gravity release exists, the answer becomes a sump system, which changes both the cost and the maintenance picture.

We will not publish a price for work we have not surveyed, because the same symptom can be a one-day tie-in or a full rear-yard rebuild. What drives the number is straightforward, and you should ask any contractor to break it out this way: linear footage of pipe, trench depth, whether a gravity outfall exists or a sump is required, the number of hardscape crossings that have to be cut and restored, basin and inlet count, and how much regrading and turf restoration follows the excavation. You get a line-item scope with quantities before anything is dug.

Sometimes. If water on one side of a slab has to reach an outfall on the other, the options are a saw-cut crossing, a channel drain at the edge, or boring underneath. We price the crossing and the restoration as their own line items so you can see exactly what that decision costs and choose knowingly.

Both, for different jobs. Rigid smooth-wall pipe carries collected water with less friction and can be cleaned out properly, so we use it for downspout collection lines and long runs. Perforated pipe belongs inside a gravel envelope where the job is to collect water from soil rather than transport it. The failure we see most often is thin corrugated pipe used as a mainline, then crushed by traffic or silted shut.

Basins and grates need clearing of leaf litter and silt, outfalls need to stay open, and pop-up emitters need to seat properly. That is most of it. Full Season maintenance members get drainage inspection and basin clearing included, which is mostly about finding a blocked outfall before the next heavy rain finds it for you.