Why Is Water Pooling in My Yard?

Start by watching one rainstorm

Before anyone digs anything, go outside during a real rain and watch your own yard. When the water arrives and how long it stays afterward tells you more about the cause than any quote will.

If water shows up while it is raining and is gone within a day, you have a surface problem. The ground is not shedding water the way it should, or something is delivering water to a spot it cannot escape from.

If the ground stays soft and saturated for days after the rain has stopped, you have a subsurface problem. Water is moving through the soil, or the soil will not let it pass at all.

That single observation narrows the cause more than anything else you can do, and it costs you nothing but a raincoat.

Cause one: the grade runs the wrong way

Ground should fall away from your foundation. On a lot of North Hills properties it did originally, and then the backfill placed against the foundation when the house was built slowly settled.

Settlement is gradual enough that nobody notices. Ten or fifteen years later the ground tips back toward the house, and water that used to run away now runs in.

This is the most common cause we find, and the fix is regrading rather than pipe.

Cause two: your roof is the problem

A roof sheds a remarkable volume of water. Downspouts dumping at the base of the wall concentrate all of it in the worst possible place.

Extending or burying downspout discharge is often the cheapest meaningful drainage work you can do, and it is worth ruling out before you consider anything bigger.

Cause three: heavy clay soil

Much of western Pennsylvania sits on clay. Clay holds water rather than letting it pass, so a low spot becomes a bowl that only empties by evaporation.

Here regrading alone may not be enough, and a drain that carries water to a real outlet is the right answer.

Cause four: something buried has already failed

Old corrugated drain lines crush. Downspout lines fill with silt. Sometimes a previous drain was installed with nowhere for the water to go and has been a buried bathtub ever since.

None of that is visible from the surface, which is why it is worth checking before you assume you need something new installed.

What to do before you call anyone

Four things, none of which cost money:

• Go outside during heavy rain and watch. Where does the water arrive from, where does it sit, and where does it want to go? Take photos while it is happening.
• Check that your downspouts are actually discharging away from the house and are not blocked.
• Look at the ground against your foundation. Does it fall away, or has it flattened out and tipped back toward the wall?
• Note how long the water takes to disappear once the rain stops.

Anyone quoting drainage work without doing at least this much is selling you pipe rather than a solution.