From the field · Patios, Driveways & Masonry
Reading Your Own Yard: The Drainage Clues Most Homeowners Miss Until They're Expensive.
Walk any property after a hard rain and the water will tell you its whole plan. Most homeowners never take that walk. They find out where the water goes two years later, from a heaved patio corner, a settled walkway, or a musty basement wall, and by then the fix has a comma in it.
So here's the walk we do on almost every estimate, free for you to run yourself. Wait for a good rain, give it ten minutes, then go look at four things.
1. Look at the ground against the house
The grade, the slope of the soil, should fall away from the foundation on every side. The old rule of thumb is about six inches of drop in the first ten feet. You don't need a level to check it: look for soil that sits flat or dips toward the wall, mulch that stays soggy against the siding, or a drip line that holds a ribbon of water. That's water being invited toward the one thing on the property you least want wet.
2. Follow the downspouts
Half the drainage problems we get called for aren't grading at all. They're a downspout dumping a whole roof's worth of water three feet from the foundation, or onto the corner of a patio. After rain, look at where each downspout lets go: a scoured hole, a fan of washed-out mulch, or a green algae stripe below it means that spout needs an extension or a buried line. It's one of the cheapest fixes in this whole trade.
3. Read the lawn like a map
The lawn records everything. A stripe that stays spongy for days after rain is a low path where water travels. Moss means a spot that never dries, and usually never drains. A bare crescent at the bottom of a slope is topsoil leaving the property one storm at a time. None of these are lawn problems. They're water problems wearing a lawn costume, and no amount of seed fixes them.
4. Check the hardscape joints
Pavers and patios sit on a base, and water is the only thing that moves a base. Look for joints where the sand has washed hollow, a step or corner that has settled out of level, or white mineral staining on walls and paver edges. That's water moving through the structure and leaving its receipt. A patio that puddles in the same spot every rain is telling you the pitch is wrong underneath, and that only travels in one direction.
What to do with what you find
Most of what you'll spot has a modest fix if it's caught early: a regrade of a few yards of soil, a downspout line, a re-pitched run of pavers, a dry well where the lawn stays wet. The expensive versions are the same jobs five years later, plus the patio rebuild or the foundation repair that made them urgent.
If you take the walk and something looks off, send us a photo or have us walk it with you. The look is free, and grade is one of the first things we read on every design consultation anyway.