Surface Water Drainage Houston, TX

Look at what happens during the storm, not after. If water runs from the patio toward the house, pours down the driveway into the garage, or cuts a little stream through mulchMulchA layer of organic or mineral material spread over soil to hold moisture, moderate soil temperature and suppress weeds. In practice: In heavy rain, light mulch can float and wash onto paving. Placement and edging should account for water flow. beds, you have a surface flow problem. Water lines on the garage floor, mud splashed on the lower courses of brick, and mulch washed onto the sidewalk are other clues.

Hard surfaces are the usual cause. A patio or driveway poured with too little pitch, or one that settled toward the house on expansive clayExpansive clayClay soil that swells when wet and shrinks when dry. Much of the Houston area sits on it, and it affects foundations, paving and drainage design. In practice: Keeping soil moisture around a slab foundation steady, without ponding or bone-dry spells, is part of good drainage design here., collects water and aims it where you do not want it. Additions like pool decks and extended patios also cut off the path water used to take across the yard.

On a flat lot, water spreads out in a thin sheet instead of following a channel. Surface drainage gives it one. A channel drain is a long, narrow trough with a grate, set flush in concrete or pavers to intercept water across the width of a surface. A catch basin is a box with a grate at a single low point. A swale is a shallow, gentle valley in the lawn that guides water toward a basin or the street.

Once water is collected, it travels through solid, smooth-wall pipe rather than perforated pipe, so it reaches the outlet without leaking back into the soil near your slab. Pipe size and the number of inlets depend on how much hard surface drains to each point. A large roof and patio feeding one inlet needs more capacity than a short walkway.

We plan surface systems around actual flow paths, so we start by learning where water goes.

1. 1Walk the property with you and review any photos or videos of the yard during rain.
2. 2Shoot elevations on patios, driveways, and lawn to find true low points and available fall.
3. 3Lay out channel drain runs, basin locations, swale lines, and pipe routes on the drainage plan.
4. 4Call 811 for utility locates and secure any HOA or city approvals.
5. 5Saw cut concrete where a channel drain goes in, or build it into a new pour or paver edge.
6. 6Trench and lay solid pipe with steady fall, then set basins and grates at finished gradeGrade and slopeGrade is the level of the ground surface, and finished grade is that level after work is complete. Slope, or fall, is the rate at which a surface drops over distance. Every hard surface needs some fall so water does not sit on it..
7. 7Shape swales, restore sod, and flood test every inlet before the walkthrough.

We use NDS components, including catch basins and channel drain systems, and our team is NDS Certified to install them. Channel drains come in several widths and grate styles. Pedestrian grates suit patios and pool decks, while driveways need grates rated for vehicle loads. Grates come in colors that blend with lawn or hardscape, and decorative options sit cleanly in pavers.

Swales are the most natural option where there is room: no grates, just shaped soil and grass. They work well along side yards and rear property lines. On tight inner-loop lots in Bellaire and West University Place there is often no room for a swale, and a channel drain or catch basin installation does the job instead.

Cost is driven by the number of collection points, the length of channel drain, the pipe run to the outlet, and whether concrete must be cut and patched. Setting a channel drain into an existing driveway takes more work than building one into a new pour, so timing matters. If you already plan a new concrete driveway installation or patio, building the drain in at the same time is usually the efficient move.

Traffic-rated grates, longer runs to the street, and pump systems for lots with no fall all add cost. Our ballpark price tool gives a starting range, and the on-site visit turns that into an itemized proposal.

The usual failures are simple. Grates set a half inch above the surrounding surface, so water flows around them. Channel drains glued into a patio without a concrete surround, so they shift and crack. Basins connected with corrugated pipe that sags and fills with sediment. Too few inlets for the area, so the first heavy storm overwhelms the system.

Another mistake is sending surface water into a French drainFrench drainA gravel-filled trench with a perforated pipe that collects water from the soil and carries it away. In practice: In heavy clay, a French drain mainly works by intercepting water near the surface. It must slope to a real outlet to be effective.. Perforated pipe is meant to collect water slowly from soil, not carry a rush of runoff, and mixing the two often leaves water pushing back out of the trench near the house.

Surface and subsurface systems often work together. Where soil stays wet after the runoff is gone, add French drain installation. Where roof water is part of the flood, a rainwater drainage system takes downspouts underground. For pool decks, patios, and paver areas, plan the drains into the surface itself. Each of these fits within our full drainage service in Houston.

Our NDS Certified drainage specialists design the system, and the same team installs the drains, the concrete or pavers around them, and the sod. A Home Scout visits every property before writing a proposal. You get an itemized proposal, our price-what-we-quote guarantee, a Drainage Performance Guarantee on the drainage work, and a 72-hour walkthrough after completion. We have worked across Houston since 2016.