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AS Landscape

Grading & Drainage

Standing water in the yard, a soggy strip that never dries, water running at the foundation after every storm. These are grade problems, and no amount of planting fixes them.

Upstate clay does not absorb water, it sheds it. So the job is to make sure it sheds where you want it to go instead of where gravity happens to take it.

Get a free estimate (864) 310-5119
Compact track loader on a freshly graded backyard of bare smooth soil
The machine work: graded smooth and ready for sod, with the fall re-established.
02

How it’s built

Cut the high spot, fill the low one

Grading is moving dirt until water has somewhere better to go. The machine cuts the mound down, carries it across, and compacts it into the low spot in lifts.

The finished surface sheds rain instead of holding it. That swale down the middle is doing the quiet work every time it storms.

  • Real equipment, not shovels
  • Fill compacted so it stays put
  • Finished with a drainage path
Sheet 02 · Site grading, elevation view
A skid steer loader cutting down a mound of soil and grading a site level Side view of a work site. A compact skid steer loader drives in, lowers its bucket, cuts into a mound of soil, carries the load across and dumps it into a low spot, then backdrags the fill smooth until the ground is level and graded.
Drawn for AS Landscape. Plays as you scroll; holds still if your device prefers reduced motion.

How the work goes

  • Downspouts carried away from the foundation
  • French drains built with clean stone and filter fabric
  • Fill compacted in lifts so it does not resettle
  • Grades that shed water without dumping it on a neighbor
  • Surface restored, not just left as bare dirt
  1. 01

    Find where the water goes

    We look at the whole path, from roof and downspouts to the low point. Most yard water problems start at a downspout.

  2. 02

    Set the target grades

    Positive fall away from the house, and a route to somewhere the water can actually leave.

  3. 03

    Move the dirt

    Cut the high spots, fill the low ones, compact the fill so it does not settle back into a puddle.

  4. 04

    Install drainage

    French drain, catch basins or solid pipe, sized and pitched, wrapped and stoned so it keeps working.

  5. 05

    Restore the surface

    Fine grade, then seed, sod or mulch so the repair does not look like a scar.

Grading & Drainage: common questions

What does a french drain cost?

Most residential french drains run $30 to $60 per linear foot installed, depending on depth, access and where the water has to go. A short run to daylight is cheap. A long run with a pop-up emitter and hand digging around utilities is not.

Why is my yard always soggy in one spot?

Usually a low point in the grade with clay underneath, fed by a downspout or by runoff from a slope. The fix is either regrading it so the water keeps moving, or intercepting the water before it gets there.

Can you fix water running toward my foundation?

Yes, and it is worth doing before it becomes a structural problem. Usually it is a combination of extending downspouts and re-establishing positive grade in the first ten feet around the house.

Grading & Drainage across the Upstate

We take this work throughout Greenville and Spartanburg counties.

Related work

Tell us what the yard is doing.

Free on-site estimate, no pressure and no subscription to anything. We look at it, we tell you what it takes, and you decide.

Request an estimate Call (864) 310-5119