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

Ogden’s largest mapped soil is hydrologic group D, and up to 0% of the mapped ground is rated as susceptible to ponding. Most of the city is mapped as built-up ground, so what is under a particular yard is fill as often as it is soil — and fill does not behave like the ground it replaced. Watch one storm before buying anything. On made ground the observation is worth more than the survey.

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 Ogden, UT.

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