The soft patch that never dries. The corner of the field that has turned to soup. Water running at the barn instead of away from it. We dig French drains and fix wet low spots on rural properties, and the first thing we will tell you is whether you actually need one.
Quoted flat before we start · Call or text 416-892-8816
A French drain is the answer when water has nowhere to go. Quite often water does have somewhere to go and something is simply in the way, and then a drain is an expensive way to fix a cheap problem. Four things worth ruling out before anyone digs a trench across your lawn.
If none of those is it, then a drain is probably the right call. Text us a photo of the wet area, ideally the day after a real rain when you can see the extent of it, and one standing back far enough to show where the ground falls away.
The patch that stays soft for days, kills the grass and bogs a mower. Usually the easiest of these to solve.
Ground falling the wrong way toward a house, barn or shop. Worth dealing with before it becomes a foundation problem rather than a yard one.
Long rural laneways that go soft in the same two places every spring, usually because water crosses rather than drains.
Grown-in ditches and field edges cleared back so they carry water again. Often the whole fix on its own.
We are not drainage engineers and we are not going to pretend to be. We have done a number of these and the honest description is that it is hard work rather than clever work.
We dig these by hand. It is slower and it is a good deal harder, but it means no machine ruts across your lawn and it means we can feel our way around roots and anything else already in the ground.
A trench, dug to a consistent fall so the water keeps moving. Filter fabric, perforated pipe, clear stone packed around it, fabric wrapped over, then backfill. The part that decides whether it works is not the pipe, it is where the water comes out at the far end, and that is the bit worth thinking about before the first shovel goes in.
What we bring to it is the stone, the labour and the trailer to take the spoil away, which on a rural property is most of the problem.
Drainage work means the trailer, the gravel and the equipment are already on your property. Most people have us do two or three things in the one visit rather than pay to get a crew out to a rural address twice.
Often the actual fix, and worth doing along the whole run rather than just the wet part. Brush control.
Laneway top-up, crusher run, fill dirt for the low spots. We are delivering aggregate for the drain anyway. Delivery details.
Leaves, beds and the last cut, done the same week the trench goes in. Fall cleanup.
A trench with a perforated pipe in it, packed around with clear stone and wrapped in filter fabric, that gives water an easier path to somewhere you would rather it went. That is the whole idea. There is nothing clever about it.
If water pools in the same low spot for a day or more after every heavy rain, or runs toward the house, the barn or the laneway instead of away from it, something needs to change. Whether that something is a drain, a regrade, a longer downspout or a cleared ditch is the part worth checking before anyone starts digging.
A straightforward run is usually a day or two. It is hard digging rather than complicated digging, and the time goes into the trench and into getting the fall right along its length so the water actually moves.
It depends on how long the run is, how deep it has to go, what is in the ground, and where the water is going to come out. We look at it and quote it flat before we start. If we think a cheaper fix would do the job, we will say so first.
No, and be careful of anyone who tells you it will. Water already getting into a basement is a foundation and waterproofing problem and it needs a contractor who does that work. We handle water in the yard, not water in the building.
Fall is a good time for it. The ground is still workable, and after the autumn rain you can actually see where the water sits, which makes it much easier to put the trench in the right place.
It leaves on our dump trailer, or it gets used to fill a low spot elsewhere on the property if that is useful to you. Either way you are not left with a spoil pile on the lawn.
That is when the problem is easiest to read. One photo of the wet area and one standing back far enough to show which way the ground falls, and we will tell you what we think it needs.
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