What it costs: Priced by length, depth, soil and where the water discharges. Pulling water off one corner is a different job from a full perimeter, so we walk the property before quoting.
Signs you need french drain & yard drainage
- Water pools against the foundation or in a low spot after every monsoon
- A soggy yard area or patio that stays wet long after the rain stops
- Runoff from a slope or a neighbor's lot sheets toward your house
- Water stains or seepage along the base of exterior walls or a garage slab
- Erosion channels or mulch and gravel washing away in the same spot each storm
How we handle it
Read the water before we dig
We walk the lot, find the high and low points, and trace where monsoon runoff actually goes, not where you'd guess it goes. The fix has to start at where water collects and discharge somewhere it can safely leave, which on a sloped high-country lot is different than on a flat metro lot.
Build a drain that lasts
A proper French drain is a graded trench, perforated pipe, washed gravel, and filter fabric that keeps Arizona's fine silt from clogging it. We slope it correctly so gravity does the work, daylight or route the discharge appropriately, and tie in surface drains or channel drains where hardscape sheds water fast.
Protect the foundation and verify the flow
We aim the system to pull water away from the slab and foundation, then run water through it to confirm it actually carries the load before we backfill and finish. You see it work, not just take our word for it.
What to know about french drain & yard drainage in Arizona
A French drain is easy to describe and easy to do wrong. At its core it's a gravel-filled trench with a perforated pipe at the bottom that gives subsurface and pooling water an easy path to follow, sloped so gravity carries it to a safe discharge point. The details are what separate a drain that works for decades from one that silts up in two seasons. The pipe has to be pitched right, the gravel has to be washed, and the whole trench needs filter fabric, because Arizona's fine, silty soil will migrate into ungraded gravel and choke the pipe solid. Done right, it's invisible and reliable. Done cheap, it's a buried disappointment.
Monsoon flooding is a different beast than steady rain, and it's why so many Arizona yards have a drainage problem they only notice three or four times a year. The ground here bakes hard and sheds water instead of soaking it up, so when a storm drops an inch in twenty minutes, that water runs across the surface hunting for the lowest point fast. On a slab-on-grade home, the lowest point is too often right up against the foundation. Good drainage isn't about handling a drizzle. It's about handling the worst twenty minutes of the worst storm.
The reason drainage is worth doing right is that water against a foundation is patient and expensive. Repeated soaking and drying cycles around a slab can contribute to soil movement, and persistent moisture finds its way into garages, along wall bases, and under hardscape. Sloped high-country lots add the complication of runoff arriving from uphill, sometimes off a neighbor's property, with real velocity behind it. A correctly designed French drain intercepts that water and routes it away before it can pool, undermine, or seep.
French Drain & Yard Drainage across Arizona
We provide french drain & yard drainage throughout the Phoenix metro and Northern Arizona high country: