Water does exactly what the shape of your ground tells it to.
Regrading in Mystic CT and across the southeastern shoreline. Reshaping the ground so water leaves on its own, which is often cheaper than the drain you were about to buy.
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Most people ring up asking for a French drain. Plenty of them need soil moved.
A pipe is a way of carrying water that has already arrived somewhere you did not want it. Grade is the reason it arrived. Fix the second one and quite often the first becomes unnecessary, which is the opposite of what you would expect a contractor to tell you.
The rule everybody in the trade works to is six inches of fall in the first ten feet away from the foundation. A great many houses on this shoreline had that in 1975 and quietly lost it, half an inch of mulch at a time, to thirty years of settling, added beds and a patio that was built later and now acts as a dam.
Sometimes the answer really is a drain, and we will say so. But we look at the shape of the ground first, because it is cheaper, it needs no maintenance and it cannot silt up in ten years.
Grade or drain. It is worth knowing before you pay for either.
They solve different problems and they cost different money. Read whichever column sounds like your property.
Water arrives and cannot leave
Surface water. You can see where it runs.
- It pools in the same low spot every storm and sits
- The ground falls toward the house rather than away
- Water sheets across a patio or driveway instead of off it
- There are erosion channels cut down a slope
- The lawn is fine two days later once it has evaporated
Water is already underground
Subsurface. You cannot see where it comes from.
- The ground stays soft long after the surface has dried
- Water appears part way down a slope with no source above it
- A basement wall is damp even when the grade looks right
- Water is arriving from off the property entirely
- There is ledge or hardpan and nowhere for it to soak
Not every regrade is a week with a machine.
The smallest one on this list solves more problems on this shoreline than the other two put together, and it is the one people never ask for by name.
Foundation re-pitch
A strip along the affected wall stripped back, built up and re-pitched to fall away, with the beds reset and the downspouts extended out past it. Small, targeted, and usually the highest return work on the whole property.
Right when: the wet is at the house. Damp wall, mulch above the siding, water standing at the foundation.
A swale across the lot
A shallow shaped channel that collects surface water and walks it somewhere deliberate at a gentle fall. It looks like nothing once the grass is back, which is exactly the point.
Right when: water crosses the property from one side to another and you need to intercept and steer it.
Full area regrade
Reshaping a whole lawn or a whole lot. Usually after clearing, after construction left the ground rutted and compacted, or where the original grading was simply never done properly.
Right when: nothing about the existing shape is worth keeping. Often paired with clearing and a new lawn.
Regrading in Mystic CT, and where it goes wrong.
Fill settles, so it gets compacted
Loose soil dropped in and raked flat will sink over the first winter and you will be looking at the same dip in April. Fill goes in in layers and gets compacted as it goes. Skipping that is the difference between a regrade and a delay.
Grade cannot beat a water table
If water is coming up rather than running across, or there is ledge two feet down, reshaping the surface will not touch it. That is a drainage problem and we will tell you so rather than sell you dirt.
You still cannot send it next door
Reshaping ground so it concentrates water onto the neighboring property is the same problem as piping it there, and it is just as permanent. Every plan has to answer where the water ends up.
Grade comes first, always
Before the patio, before the seed, before the irrigation. Regrading after a hardscape is in means taking the hardscape up. This is the single most expensive sequencing mistake on a property.
It is not finished until it is green
Bare shaped soil is half a job and it erodes in the first storm. Every regrade leaves seeded and strawed, or blanketed on anything with real fall. See lawn installation.
We would rather sell you the smaller job.
If a strip of re-pitch along one wall solves it, that is what you get quoted, not a full lot regrade. And if the shape of the ground is not the problem at all, we say that too. Fill goes in compacted, every regrade leaves seeded, utilities are marked through Call Before You Dig, and a certificate of insurance goes over before work starts, every time.
Show us where it goes in a storm.
A photo taken during rain is worth more than an hour of describing it, because the moment the ground dries the evidence is gone. We walk it, shoot levels, and tell you whether it is dirt or pipe. Often it is a strip along one wall, not the whole garden.
Free site walk · levels shot before anything is quoted · fill compacted, not just raked flat
Straight answers about regrading in Mystic CT.
Do I need regrading or a drain?
If the water runs across the surface and pools, it is usually grade. If it sits in ground that is already saturated, or arrives with no visible source, it is usually a drain. Plenty of properties want a bit of both, and the site walk sorts it out.
Is it cheaper than a French drain?
A foundation re-pitch usually is, and it has no pipe to silt up in ten years. A full lot regrade is not. Which is why we scope the smallest version that actually solves it rather than starting at the top.
Will the lawn survive it?
The graded area will not, it gets stripped and reshaped. It leaves seeded and strawed, or sodded if you need it usable sooner, and by the following season the join is invisible.
Why did my grade disappear?
Backfill around a foundation settles for years, beds get topped with mulch every spring, and patios and additions get built later without anybody thinking about where water went. Half an inch a year is all it takes.
When is the best time?
Late spring through early fall, when the ground is workable and seed will take, so the lawn recovers in the same season as the dig. Saturated spring ground gets rutted by the machines and costs more to put right.
Can you do it before a patio goes in?
Yes, and that is the right order. Grade first, then hardscape, then seed, then irrigation. Regrading after a patio is down means lifting the patio, which is the most expensive mistake on this page.
More on water, soil and shaping ground.
What is actually going on under a southeastern Connecticut lawn, and what it takes to put it right.
Winter Prep for a Downtown Mystic Property With No Driveway
On a historic district lot there is no driveway to plow and nowhere obvious to put the snow. Winter here is planned in October, not reacted to in January.
Groton or Stonington? Which Town You Deal With for Ground Work in Mystic
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