Standing water against your foundation is not a landscaping problem. It is a structural threat. After moving over a million yards of fill dirt across DFW and Denver, we can tell you that 70% of the drainage calls we get share the same root cause: the grade around the house has settled, shifted, or was never right to begin with. The good news is most yard drainage problems can be fixed with fill dirt, proper slope, and a weekend of work. Here is how to diagnose the issue and pick the right solution.
Step One: Diagnose Where the Water Is Going Wrong
Before you order material or start digging, you need to answer three questions. Where does water collect? Where does it come from? And what is your soil doing with it?
Walk your yard after a heavy rain. In DFW, that means after one of those spring downpours that drops two inches in an hour. In Denver, watch during snowmelt in March and April when freeze-thaw cycles push saturated ground in unpredictable directions. Mark every spot where water pools and sits for more than 30 minutes after rain stops. Note whether the water is sheeting off your roof, running from a neighbor's property, or simply collecting in a low spot with nowhere to go.
Soil type matters enormously. DFW sits on heavy clay that expands when wet and contracts when dry. Clay drains at roughly 0.1 inches per hour, which means a two-inch rainstorm creates standing water that takes 20 hours to percolate on flat ground. Denver's Front Range soils vary more, but clay content is still common, especially in developments built on old agricultural land. If you grab a fistful of wet soil and it holds its shape like modeling clay, you are dealing with high clay content and surface drainage is your only real option.
Solution Hierarchy: Simplest to Most Complex
Fix drainage problems in order of simplicity. Start with the easiest solution and add complexity only if needed. Here is the hierarchy we recommend after a decade of grading work.
1. Regrade with Fill Dirt
This is the single most effective drainage fix and the one most homeowners skip. The International Residential Code calls for a minimum 6-inch drop over the first 10 feet away from your foundation. That is a 5% slope. We recommend at least 1-2% slope (1 to 2.4 inches of drop per 10 feet) across the rest of your yard to keep water moving toward the street, alley, or designated drainage area.
To establish proper grade, you need fill dirt. Not topsoil, not compost, not garden soil. Fill dirt compacts firmly and does not decompose or settle over time. For areas within 5 feet of your foundation, we recommend structural fill or select fill at $20 per yard in DFW or $25 per yard in Denver. These materials compact to 95%+ density and will not shift under your slab. For general yard regrading beyond the foundation zone, standard fill dirt works perfectly at $10 per yard in DFW or $15 per yard in Denver.
How much do you need? Measure the area in square feet, then figure your average depth. A typical foundation regrading job on a 2,000 square foot home perimeter (measuring 5 feet out from the house on all sides) needing an average of 4 inches of fill requires about 12 cubic yards. That is one tandem load plus a little extra. Use our calculator at filldirtnearme.net/calculator to dial in your exact number. Our minimum is 10 yards per delivery, and all prices include delivery with no hidden fees.
2. Extend Downspouts
Each 1,000 square feet of roof area produces about 600 gallons of water per inch of rainfall. If your downspouts dump that water right at your foundation, no amount of grading will keep up. Extend every downspout at least 6 feet from the house, ideally 10 feet. Use solid pipe, not the flexible corrugated kind that clogs with leaves in one season. This is a $50-$150 fix that you should do before anything else.
3. Install a French Drain
A french drain is a gravel-filled trench with a perforated pipe that collects subsurface water and moves it to a discharge point. You need one when water is seeping up through the soil rather than running across the surface, or when you have a persistent wet zone that regrading alone cannot solve.
The basic build: dig a trench 12 inches wide and 18 inches deep with a 1% slope toward the discharge point. Line it with landscape fabric, lay 3 inches of gravel, set a 4-inch perforated pipe (holes down), then fill with gravel to within 2 inches of grade. Fold the fabric over the top and cover with soil or sod. A 50-foot french drain runs $500-$1,500 in materials for DIY or $2,000-$5,000 installed by a contractor.
In DFW clay soil, french drains need a discharge point. The clay will not absorb the water you collect, so the pipe must daylight to the street, alley, or a pop-up emitter in a lower part of the yard. Do not just bury a french drain and hope. Without discharge, you are building an underground swimming pool.
4. Build a Swale
A swale is a shallow, wide channel that moves surface water across your yard by gravity. Think of it as a gentle ditch disguised as a landscape feature. Swales work best when you need to redirect water flow across a large area or intercept runoff coming from a neighbor's property.
Build a swale 12-24 inches wide and 6-8 inches deep with a 1-2% slope along its length. The dirt you remove from the swale channel becomes the berm on the downhill side, reinforcing the water path. Line the swale with sod or seed it with grass to prevent erosion. For the excavated area that needs filling on the high side, standard fill dirt works well. A 50-foot swale typically requires 3-5 cubic yards of fill to build up the berm and regrade the surrounding area.
5. Install Catch Basins
Catch basins are the heavy artillery. A catch basin is a grated box set at ground level in a low spot, connected to a solid pipe that carries water to a discharge point. Use these when you have a defined low point that collects water from multiple directions and cannot be graded out. A single catch basin with 20 feet of discharge pipe runs $200-$400 in materials. Most yards that need catch basins need two or three, plus the connecting pipe network. Budget $1,500-$4,000 for professional installation.
When to Combine Solutions
Most drainage problems need more than one fix. The typical job we see in DFW involves regrading with fill dirt (solving 60% of the problem), extending downspouts (solving another 20%), and adding one french drain or swale to handle the remaining trouble spot. In Denver, freeze-thaw cycles mean the grade you set in summer can shift by spring. We recommend compacting fill in 4-inch lifts with a plate compactor and slightly over-building your slope by half an inch per 10 feet to account for seasonal settling.
Here is a realistic cost breakdown for a typical 2,000 square foot yard with moderate drainage problems:
Regrading with fill dirt (12-18 yards): $120-$180 for material with delivery. Downspout extensions (4 downspouts): $200-$400. One 40-foot french drain (DIY): $400-$1,000 in materials. Total DIY cost: $720-$1,580. Compare that to foundation repair at $5,000-$15,000 and the math is obvious.
Permitting Considerations
In most DFW cities, regrading your own yard does not require a permit as long as you are not changing drainage patterns onto neighboring properties or working within a floodplain. However, if you are adding more than 6 inches of fill over a large area, check with your city. Dallas, Fort Worth, Plano, and Frisco all have different thresholds. In Denver metro, grading permits are generally required for earthwork that changes drainage patterns or involves more than 50 cubic yards of material. Aurora and Lakewood have stricter rules than unincorporated Jefferson County. A quick call to your city's development services department takes five minutes and can save you a code violation.
DIY vs. Hiring a Grading Contractor
You can handle regrading yourself if your yard is relatively flat, you need less than 20 yards of fill, and you own or rent a plate compactor and a landscape rake. Spread fill dirt in 4-inch layers, compact each layer, then check your slope with a string level or a laser level. The 1% slope you need is about an eighth of an inch per foot. That is hard to eyeball, so do not skip the level.
Hire a grading contractor if your yard has significant elevation changes, you need to move more than 30 yards of material, the drainage solution involves underground pipe work, or the water problem is affecting your foundation. A grading contractor with a skid steer can do in four hours what takes a homeowner two weekends with a wheelbarrow.
Either way, you need the right material delivered to your site. We run tandem trucks (10 yards), tri-axle trucks (16 yards), and end dump and side dump trailers (18 yards each) across 80+ cities in DFW and 14+ cities in the Denver metro. Text us at (469) 523-6420 with your address, what you need, and how many yards. We can get same-day delivery on orders placed before 10 AM, Monday through Saturday, 7 AM to 5 PM. Payment is simple: Zelle or Venmo.
Standing water is not a problem that ages well. Every rain cycle pushes more moisture against your foundation, saturates your clay soil, and accelerates settling. The fill dirt to fix it costs less than a decent dinner out. The foundation repair you will need if you wait does not.