Surface water wants a catch basin and a graded swale. Water sitting in the ground wants a perforated drain in stone. Water with nowhere to go wants a dry well or a pump. Most disappointing yard drainage is the right product installed against the wrong one of those three.

Which of the three this ground calls for

74% of the mapped ground in Clinton takes water in, on soil the survey rates hydrologic group A. This is the ground where the third option is cheapest: the water can usually be put back into the ground on the property rather than carried to a boundary. That makes a sized dry well the obvious first design here, and it makes a long piped run to a boundary something to question rather than accept.

The reasoning behind that

Watch the yard during a storm. Water that runs across the surface and pools in a low spot is surface water, and the cheapest answer is usually to reshape the ground so it runs somewhere useful, with a catch basin at the low point if reshaping is not enough.

Ground that stays soft and squelching for days after the rain has stopped is holding water below the surface. Surface fixes do nothing for it. That is what a perforated drain in stone is for, set below the wet layer.

Then there is the destination. On a sloping lot, water can be taken to a low boundary and released. On a flat lot with no outfall, it has to be stored and absorbed, or lifted.

Doing all three at once is how yards end up with an expensive system that still holds water, because the part that mattered was the part that was assumed.

More on this: Yard and Lawn Drainage in Clinton, UT.

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