Drainage in Yard - Suggestions?

[D.J.]

We would like to fix some minor drainage problems in our yard, but we don’t know how to go about doing this. Part of the yard is mysteriously marshy all of the time, which could be a leaking pipe or messed up old drain, and areas of the yard pool with water after a rain. It seems that it would be wise to have an engineer write up a survey and do a plan for us, but this might be expensive, and we would have to pay for that before even getting a contractor to do the work. What is the process that most people follow to fix these problems in Houston? I’ve seen a lot of landscaping company ads that list “drainage” as a service, but I don’t know if it’s smart to hire someone without an engineering background to do this work. With as much rain as we can get in Houston, I wouldn’t want any changes to screw up and flood my house or my neighbor’s house. Does anyone have any advice for the best process to follow? Companies you could recommend? Appreciate your responses. Thanks in advance.

[Ross]

Get someone who is a licensed drainage engineer. We did, and he worked wonders. Unfortunately, I've lost the card for the guy we used.

[D.J.]

Get someone who is a licensed drainage engineer. We did, and he worked wonders. Unfortunately, I've lost the card for the guy we used.

Thanks, do you remember about how much it cost you to get an evaluation and plan drawn up?

[Ross]

We spent about $1300 for a new drain line to the street, a couple of new box drains, some rocks, and some geotechnical cloth. That also included the cost to power clean the 100 feet of 4 inch pipe that drains our driveway that was packed nearly solid with leaves and grass and mud.