Answer four questions about where water collects, how long it stands, your soil, and your grade — get a drainage risk score and the right fix. Free, instant, tuned for San Antonio & the Hill Country.
Your yard pools because the water has nowhere to go and nothing to soak into. It's one of three things — a grade that's flat or tips back toward the house, soil like caliche or clay that sheds water faster than it absorbs, or runoff sheeting off hardscape into a low spot. Usually it's a mix.
The diagnostic weighs all four — location, duration, soil, and grade — into a live risk score, then names the fix: a bioswale to catch and slow surface water, a French drain to pull it off the foundation, or a regrade to send it the right way to begin with.
§ 1 · How it works
Four questions, one diagnosis.
Step 1
Where water collects
Foundation, mid-yard low spot, hardscape edge, or property edge. Foundation pooling weighs heaviest.
Step 2
How long it stands
Hours, about a day, two to three days, or three-plus. The longer it sits, the higher the risk.
Step 3
Soil type
Caliche and clay shed and hold water; loam and sand infiltrate, so they score lower.
Step 4
Read your grade
Falls away, flat, slopes toward the house, or mixed — then read the score and the fix.
§ 2 · The Hill Country ground
Why it floods here.
Two grounds, one problem. The flats hold clay that cracks open dry and swells shut wet — once it's saturated it stops taking water and the low spots turn to ponds. The higher ground caps out on caliche and limestone, a near-impermeable shelf that sheds a hard storm straight downhill. Add the Hill Country's flash storms — months of dry broken by an inch in an hour — and water arrives faster than either soil can absorb it.
You don't fight the soil. You give the water somewhere to go and time to soak: positive grade off the foundation, then a bioswale or rain garden that catches the runoff and releases it slowly into the caliche fracture network. We never quote a fix we can't see on your slope.
Why does my yard pool and flood after every storm?
It's almost always one of three things: water has nowhere to go (the grade is flat or slopes back toward the house), the soil won't take it (caliche and clay shed water faster than the ground absorbs it), or runoff sheets off hardscape into a low spot. The diagnostic weighs all four — location, how long water stands, soil, and grade — so you can see which one is driving it before you trench.
French drain or bioswale — which one do I need?
A French drain is a buried, gravel-wrapped pipe that carries subsurface water away — best when water is trapped against a foundation on slow soil and you need it gone fast. A bioswale is a shallow planted channel that catches surface runoff, slows it, and lets it infiltrate over hours — best for mid-yard low spots and hardscape sheet flow. Many Hill Country yards use both: a regrade off the foundation, then a bioswale for the overflow.
How do you fix drainage on caliche or clay soil?
Caliche and clay barely infiltrate, so you don't fight the soil — you give the water somewhere to go and time to soak. That means positive grade away from structures, a bioswale or rain garden sized to hold a storm and release it slowly into the caliche fracture network, and a French drain where water is trapped against the foundation. The diagnostic flags both as high-risk soils for exactly this reason.
How much does it cost to fix yard drainage?
It depends on the fix and the run length — a regrade is cheapest, a French drain runs higher because it's trenched and graded, and a bioswale falls in between by size and planting. A drainage problem can't be priced from a checklist, so we walk the property after a storm to see where water actually goes before we quote. We never quote a number we can't source on your slope.
Start here
Read the storm.
Free, instant, no signup. Then book a Site Read and we'll walk it after a storm to see where the water really goes.