South Louisiana is as used to rain and lots of it as it is to crawfish. As a result, it can do a lot of damage to your lawn, landscaping, and property as a whole. It’s also important to know that bad drainage can hurt your home’s foundation, making adequate drainage a priority. If you see places in your yard or around your house that hold water after a storm, you can fix this problem in a few ways. Let’s look at how a specialist in landscaping and drainage can help.
Your lawn can drain in a number of ways.
There are different ways to deal with standing water and puddles, depending on where they are and how big they are. The experts at Baton Rogue Landscape Pros can help with everything from small, simple projects to bigger, more complex ones.
French drains or seepage drains can be built in your yard
A French drain, also called a seepage drain, can be a simple and effective way to fix drainage problems. With just a simple trench, a pipe with holes, and some gravel, you can keep standing water away from your home’s foundation. This is especially important because our homes in south Louisiana are built on wide, clay-filled soil. When too much water gets into the ground, it will swell and put pressure on your house’s foundation. In the same way, when it dries out, it loosens up and gets smaller. Serious foundation problems are caused by this back and forth-all time. Keeping the water level steady and making sure there is enough drainage can stop these problems.
Drainage Ways in Rocks
If your house foundation is unusually low compared to the slope of your lawn or landscape, grading work may not be an option (as we’ll talk about below), but something needs to be done to keep water from getting into the weep holes in brick walls or wrapping up and under the siding. A rock path that is 6 to 12 inches wide and has either a lower-graded soil base or a French drain under it is a good way to keep water from getting into your home during heavy rains. These can have an open end that lets water flow out onto the lawn or a closed-end that holds the water and moves it to a lower drain end somewhere else on the property. When the foundation is low and there are no gutters to direct roof water into a separate system, this is a very good option
Lawn Grading and Removal of Dirt
For bigger ponding problems, you might need grading services. Your yard should be sloped so that water flows away from your house. If there are large pools of water, this problem can be fixed by regrading the area. On the other hand, your home may be surrounded by too much dirt and soil. If this is the case, our drainage experts can figure out what’s wrong and remove the dirt and sod in a way that keeps water from pooling and keeps mud holes and bare spots from forming.
Gutters
Gutters are often overlooked in the world of home design, but they can be useful and add a touch of style to your home. They can also give you peace of mind that your house won’t get water damage from heavy rain because of roof runoff. With today’s gutter technology, we have now, gutters can be made to match the color of the house or roof shingles, making them less noticeable than ever. As copper gutters age and patina, they can be used to make a house look older. The different styles available today can be anything from a K-style (box) that can hold a lot of water to a half-round style that looks elegant and has an “old world” feel. Both of these styles have round downspouts to soften the look of the gutter along a wall. With a well-designed drainage system, downspouts can be routed over or into catch basins so that water can flow out to the street or a common drainage point.
Sump Pump Systems
Because of a tree, water has to go uphill to drain. It’s easier than you might think to move water uphill against the laws of physics. Sump pumps are strong pumps that are turned on and off by a float switch. They are placed in a sump basin, which is where water from drains goes. Once the pump’s reservoir is full enough, a float will turn on a switch on the pump. The unit will then pump the water to a common drainage area, no matter how it is piped through the property—uphill, downhill, or even around multiple corners. We try to do this only as a last resort since we’re adding a mechanical and electronic way to move water, which means there’s a point of failure (usually many years down the road) that can cause problems if the unit stops working.
Baton Rogue Landscape Pros are here to help if you need help fixing drainage problems in your yard, sprucing up your flowerbeds, mowing your lawn, trimming tree branches, or any other landscaping service.
