Drainage & French Drain Installation in Central Texas

A French drain is a gravel-filled trench with a perforated pipe in the bottom that collects water out of saturated ground and carries it somewhere safe to let go. You need one when water sits in the yard days after a rain, when a slope pushes runoff toward the house, when a crawl space or slab edge stays damp, or when a low spot has turned into a permanent mud hole.

Most yard and foundation French drains run 18 to 30 inches deep, sloped at least an inch every eight feet so gravity keeps water moving. Depth depends on where the water is coming from and where it can daylight. A drain dug flat, or one with no real outlet, fills with water and stops working — that's the most common failure we get called out to fix.

On its own. Drainage is a standalone service for us — you don't need to be building anything to hire us. We do plenty of jobs that are nothing but a French drain, a regraded swale, and a proper outlet.

Usually, yes — most wet-foundation problems in Central Texas are surface-water problems. Grade that falls toward the house, gutters dumping at the slab, and clay soil that holds water are the usual culprits. Regrading the first ten feet around the structure, running a French drain along the wet side, and piping downspouts away solves the majority of it.

A French drain moves water that's already in the ground. A swale is a shallow shaped channel that moves water across the surface. A culvert carries water under something — usually a driveway. Most properties need some combination, and picking the wrong one is why a lot of drainage work doesn't hold. We look at where the water actually comes from before we pick a fix.

Yes. Cut gullies, washed-out ditches, eroding slopes, and pond overflow damage are regular work for us. Depending on the site that means rock-lined channels, reshaped swales, rip rap at outlets, check dams, or regrading the drainage path entirely.

We do. Small structure demolition, concrete and slab removal, old barn and shed teardown, fence and pen removal, and haul-off — often alongside drainage or site prep, but as a standalone job as well.