Drainage Baton Rouge: French Drains and Yard Drainage That Actually Drain

Yard Drainage Systems in Baton Rouge, LA

Baton Rouge gets about 60 inches of rain a year, far above the national average, and most of our yards sit on flat, heavy soil that holds it. Standing water after a storm is not bad luck. It is water with no way out. A yard drainage system gives it one: a low point to collect in, a pipe to travel through, and a discharge point that is lower than where it started.

We install French drains, catch basins, downspout tie-ins and full drainage systems for homes across Baton Rouge, Denham Springs and Livingston Parish. Every system starts the same way, with a walk through the yard after we ask you one question: where is the last spot to dry out after rain?

How We Diagnose a Drainage Problem

The low spot is where the system starts, not where the puddle is easiest to reach. From there we look for an exit that is lower than the start, usually the street, a ditch or a swale. If we can get a natural fall from one to the other, gravity does the work for the life of the system. We run pipe at about a 2 percent fall, one to two inches of drop for every ten feet, so water never sits in the line.

A lot of drainage calls in newer subdivisions come down to grading. Final grading gets rushed on a new build, and then a neighbor raises a lot, pours a slab or adds a pool. The path your water used to take is gone. Your yard did not change. The yard next door did. We find the new low spot and give the water a new way out.

French Drain Systems

A French drain is a trench with a perforated pipe at the bottom, surrounded by washed gravel and wrapped in filter fabric so soil cannot clog it. Water in the ground seeps into the gravel, drops into the pipe and travels downhill to the exit. It is the right fix for a side yard between two houses, a soggy strip along a fence, or a backyard that stays wet for days.

Where the problem is roof water rather than ground water, the fix is different. Downspouts by themselves dump the whole roof at your foundation. We tie them into solid pipe that carries the water out to the street, because gutters without drainage to a discharge point just move the problem to your slab.

Catch Basins, Pipe Size and Pumps

Catch basins collect surface water in a patio corner or a low spot in the lawn and feed it into the line. Pipe size follows the water: a small side yard runs on four inch pipe, and a yard taking two roofs and a patio may need six inch pipe so the line keeps up in a downpour.

A pump is the last resort. It is only necessary when there is no natural slope from the low spot to any exit. Pumps work, but they stop when the power goes out, which in a Louisiana storm is exactly when you need them. If gravity can do the job, we will tell you that you do not need a pump, even when someone else has already quoted you one.

Protecting Your Plants and Your Foundation

Drainage is not only about the lawn. Beds that hold water rot roots, and water that sits against a slab finds its way in. A drainage system that carries water away from the house protects the beds, the sod and the foundation at the same time, which is why we grade and drain before we plant anything on a renovation.

What a Drainage Job Looks Like

1. A walk through the yard to find the low spot and the exit.
2. An itemized quote by email with the pipe sizes, the run and the discharge point spelled out.
3. Trenching, often by hand where the loader cannot go, and pipe laid at a steady fall.
4. Downspouts tied in, gravel and fabric placed, catch basins set.
5. Sod put back over the trench. In a few weeks you cannot tell where the crew was.

Drainage is one of the three things we warranty, along with irrigation and artificial turf, because we control every part of the installation. After the next hard rain, watch the low spot. It should be dry within hours.