Stop water from ruining your yard and basement.

Three causes account for almost every drainage problem we see on the South Shore: lots that were graded toward the house instead of away from it (common on older split-levels), downspouts that dump roof water within a few feet of the foundation, and high water tables in low-elevation neighborhoods near the bay that simply can’t absorb storm runoff fast enough.

Fixing drainage means identifying which of those is in play (often more than one), then choosing the right combination of regrading, surface drains, French drains and dry wells to move water off the property — not just from one wet spot to another.

A French drain is a trench filled with washed stone around a perforated pipe, wrapped in non-woven filter fabric — designed to collect groundwater along a length and carry it to daylight or a dry well. Effective for chronically wet lawn areas, against retaining walls, and along the uphill side of a foundation.

Dry wells are sized to the roof area or yard area they serve — a typical 1,500 sq ft roof needs roughly 200–300 cubic feet of dry well capacity for a 1-inch rainfall. We pipe downspouts underground in solid PVC out to the dry well, set under a layer of stone and fabric, with an inspection riser at the top.

Where the underlying problem is grade, no amount of subsurface drain will solve it cleanly. We regrade the affected area to a minimum 1% slope (1 foot drop per 100 feet) away from the house, fill low spots with screened topsoil, and re-sod or slice-seed so the fix disappears.

After any drainage work, we always restore turf, mulch beds and any disturbed hardscape — you shouldn’t be able to tell where we dug a week after the lawn fills back in.