Drainage Process

It is important that we exceed your expectations when you contact us for a bid and/or hire us as your drainage contractor.  Our process is a bit different than some other companies you may have worked with in the past, but we believe it is our process that provides our customers with superior solutions for their home/building and yard drainage.  Here’s how:

• When you contact us we’ll schedule a time for our owner, Alan Weaver, to visit your property.  He will ask you questions about the problem and take distance and elevation measurements. There is no charge for this visit or for a bid, however, we won’t send a bid until…
• Mr. Weaver returns to the office to make calculations and design a  drainage solution that will solve your water problems right, the first time. He will email you with a drawing of the system he has designed, a report explaining the design with as much detail as possible, a list of previous customers you can contact as references if you wish to do so, and a bid for your home/building or lawn drainage project. We will communicate with you to confirm that you have received the email. (See below for an explanation of the types of drains, including French drains.)
• If you wish to move forward, simply call us stating your approval and we will schedule a date to begin your drainage system or repair.  This date is usually within 10 days of your approval of the bid, but it is tentative because we must wait until the utility companies have visited your area and marked their lines.  Typically, it is the date we estimate or very close to it.
• On the date of the start of your project, the crew will arrive usually in the morning. The crew leader will be totally briefed as to the details of the project. Both he and Mr. Weaver will stay in touch with you to ensure any questions you have are addressed.
• When the job is complete, Mr. Weaver will set up a time to walk through the new drainage system with you and pick up payment.  You don’t have to worry about cleaning up after us: on virtually every job, our customers express how detailed we were and how delighted they were with the clean up and how the job went.

Types of Drains

We want to familiarize you with the terms you’ll see in the drawing, report, and bid. Each drainage problem usually requires a unique solution, but most importantly there are three main types of drainage solutions that we use:

Channel Drain: This drain is the best option if surface water is flowing down a driveway into a garage or warehouse, or across a sidewalk/patio onto a porch or under a door threshold. It is designed for both pedestrian and vehicular traffic. A strip of concrete is cut out adjacent to the door or garage and a trench is excavated. A prefabricated, rigid PVC trough is installed and connected to piping below the grade, or ground level. The piping slopes to a discharge point. Grating is fitted on top of the trough to keep out foreign objects but to allow water to flow into and through the system.

French Drain: A French drain is designed to collect water that is flowing below ground and is being exposed at the base of a retaining wall or hillside, or in a crawl space.  The installation of a French drain is more involved than the other two types and typically costs more, but it is the only effective solution for subsurface flow.  The cost depends in great part on the length and depth of the system.

A French drain trench is dug, lined with filter fabric and a perforated pipe is laid in the bottom. (The perforations allow water to enter the pipe.) The trench is backfilled with gravel approximately 1 ½” in diameter.

When water flows across the trench, it filters down through the fabric and gravel, enters the pipe, and flows down the slope of the pipe to the discharge point.

Surface Drainage System:  This type of drainage solution is designed to collect surface water (from rain and downspouts). Catch basins are installed in the ground low enough so the grade can be sloped towards them at a level that efficiently drains the water.  Solid pipe (no perforations) is connected to the catch basins and slopes to the discharge point.  The price of these types of yard and building surface drainage solutions vary significantly, based on the size and complexity of the system.

Learn more:
Contact us to receive a detailed, no charge bid.
Visit our About Us page to learn more about our experience as drainage contractors.
Identify your home drainage problem.
Understand the types of drainage solutions for residential and commercial buildings and yards.