Protect Your Property with Expert Drainage

Why Choose Professional Drainage Solutions?

Proper drainage is essential for protecting your property from water damage, erosion, and foundation issues. Standing water and poor drainage can destroy landscapes, create muddy areas, and even compromise structural integrity. Our drainage experts assess your property's unique challenges and design effective solutions that redirect water away from problem areas while maintaining the beauty of your landscape.

Signs your yard has a drainage problem

We are Adam and Ben, brothers running our own crew out of South Surrey, and we get more drainage calls between October and March than the rest of the year combined. Most homeowners already suspect something is wrong before they call. These are the signs worth acting on:

• Puddles that are still sitting on the lawn a day or two after the rain stops.
• Ground that stays spongy underfoot, or a lawn that turns to mud on the same walking line every winter.
• Moss taking over the lawn while the grass thins out.
• Water pooling against the foundation, or damp along the base of a basement or crawlspace wall.
• Downspouts discharging straight onto soil or paving beside the house.
• Soil, bark mulch or gravel washing across a path or driveway after a heavy rain.
• Pavers or slabs that have settled into a dish, or a retaining wall that has started to lean or bulge.
• A patio or driveway that drains toward the house instead of away from it.

What we install

French drains. A trench of clean drain rock with a perforated pipe laid to fall, wrapped in filter fabric so silt cannot clog it. This is the workhorse for intercepting water moving through the soil before it reaches the house or the low corner of the yard.

Perimeter drains tied to the storm connection. Where the problem is around the foundation, the drain has to actually go somewhere. We tie into the existing storm connection or a suitable daylight outlet so the water leaves the property instead of circulating.

Catch basins and channel drains. For surface water. Catch basins collect from a low point in a lawn or planting bed; channel drains, set flush across the head of a driveway or the edge of a patio, take a whole line of runoff at once and keep it off the garage slab.

Downspout extensions. The cheapest fix on this list and often the most effective. A roof sheds an enormous volume of water in a Lower Mainland winter, and dropping it beside the foundation causes more problems than anything else we see. We pipe downspouts underground and out to a proper discharge point.

Regrading. Sometimes there is nothing to install. The ground simply falls the wrong way. Reshaping the grade so water runs away from the house and toward a collection point is the most durable fix there is, because it has nothing to fail.

Dry wells, where permitted. An underground stone or chambered reservoir that holds water and lets it soak away. Only appropriate where the soil actually percolates and where the municipality allows it, so we confirm both before proposing one.

How we diagnose it on the site visit

We would rather come out during or just after a rain, because the yard shows us the answer for free. We walk the property and read the grades, look at where the ground is soft and where the moss is, trace every downspout to see where it ends, and find the existing drains, cleanouts and the storm connection if there is one. We check the soil, since heavy clay in parts of Surrey and Langley behaves very differently from sandy fill. We look at the neighbouring lots too, because water arriving from next door is a different problem from water your own roof is producing. Then we tell you which of those causes is the main one, and we quote the fix for that rather than selling you every drain on the list. The written quote follows within 24 hours.

Drainage and hardscape go together

A patio, a driveway and a retaining wall all change how water moves across a property. A new patio replaces soil that used to absorb rain with a surface that sheds it, and that water has to have somewhere to go. A retaining wall holds back soil that stays wet for months, and without drain rock and a perforated pipe behind it, that water pushes on the wall until something gives. That is why we design the drainage and the hardscape at the same time and trench for both while the ground is already open. Retrofitting a drain under a finished patio means lifting what we just built, which nobody wants to pay for twice. Everything we install carries our 1-year workmanship warranty.

What it costs

Typical ranges in Greater Vancouver, with the usual caveats about access, soil and how far the water has to travel to a legal discharge point:

• Piping downspouts underground to a proper outlet: typically $600 to $2,500 depending on the number of downspouts and the run.
• A French drain: typically $50 to $110 per linear foot installed, including excavation, drain rock, pipe, fabric and disposal.
• A catch basin or channel drain tied into a line: typically $900 to $3,000 per unit.
• Regrading a problem area of lawn or yard: typically $2,000 to $8,000 depending on the volume of soil moved.
• A dry well, where soil and bylaw permit: typically $2,500 to $7,000.
• A whole-yard drainage system on a difficult lot: typically $10,000 and up.