Solving 5 Common Yard Drainage Issues

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It’s days after a light to moderate rainfall and your yard remains a landfill of puddles, that quickly turns your lawn into a soggy pond of standing water. If this sounds familiar, you might be up against yard drainage issues.  

Having a yard that drains properly is for more than just aesthetic purposes. When you’re up against persistent yard drainage issues there is almost always larger, underlying issues at hand that must be dealt with. Yard drainage issues can result in damage to your lawn and your foundation. But rest assured, if your home is experiencing yard drainage issues, we’re here with five solutions to combat your underwater yard.

1) Elevation at Your Homes’ Foundation

One of the first culprits when it comes to yard drainage issues is the natural gravitational pull — water flows downhill. When your home sits at a slightly lower elevation than the surrounding land, water can easily find its way into your home’s basement, draining in the obviously wrong direction. This problem is one that could have been avoided during the initial construction phase of your house by ensuring that the home’s foundational slab was elevated just enough to achieve a proper slop allowing excess water to drain away from the home. However, after construction, having a subsurface draining system installed or improving the grading of your yard, can help to mitigate yard drainage issues.

2) Yard Slope

When you find your yard littered with puddles of water that don’t seem to be draining away days after a rainfall, chances are the slope of your yard may need a little attention. When your yard has no slope or is sloped the wrong way — towards your home — water will either not drain or drain in the completely wrong direction. Having your yard professionally graded to ensure that water has the ability to drain away from your home will ensure yard draining issues are a non-issue.

3) Downspouts

Often overlooked is the importance of effectively placed, properly functioning downspouts, and clear, unobstructed eavestroughs. Eavestroughs play a crucial role in collecting the water that accumulates at the roof, funnelling it away from your home, through your downspout, which then shoots water away from your house’s foundation. When your eavestroughs become full of debris — fallen leaves, pine needles and branches — it hinders the ability for water to move easily towards the downspout, often resulting in overflow collecting at your home’s foundation. At the same time, downspouts when not long enough or positioned correctly will inhibit the flow of water away from your home, compromising your foundation. Therefore ensuring regular scheduled cleanings of your eavestroughs, and the use of long downspouts that direct water away from your home will help to alleviate yard drainage problems.

4) Water runoff

When reviewing potential solutions to combat your yard drainage issues who says the solution can’t also work to enhance the appearance of your yard by adding a touch of curb side appeal. With the assistance of professional landscapers, turn your yard drainage issue into an opportunity to create a landscaped creek bed, that directs runoff water away from your home. Creek beds involve the excavation of dirt along a given path through your yard — creating a shallow trench — which is then combined with the collection of large and small rocks that are laid down within the trench. Larger rocks are placed along the sides of the creek bed in order to aid in channeling water downhill and away from your home.

5) Paved Surfaces

When it comes to grading the land around your home’s exterior, not only do you have to consider the slope of your yard, but you also must consider the slope of the hard, finished surfaces as well — from your driveway, to your interlocking pathways to your patio. Each one of these surfaces, if not properly graded away from your home, can contribute to yard drainage issues. On top of proper grading, the materials used to construct your driveway and walkways also play a large role in the success of yard drainage. Gravel, spaced paving, and paver stones make for much more permeable surfaces when compared to pavement and poured concrete.

While having a yard with drainage issues might feel like an uphill battle — literally — it doesn’t have to be. Before you lose hope on you lawn-turned-pond, turn to F.M. Interlock Inc. to get professional advice and assistance. Let F.M. Interlock Inc. work with you to plan, design, and install lasting, effective, and functional yard drainage systems whether that be through landscaping, interlocking driveways, walkways, patios or retaining walls.

A basement wall showing different types of foundation cracks