Drainage & Grading in Overland Park

Johnson County sits on heavy clay that does not drain, and a lot of Overland Park subdivisions were graded to move water off the street rather than away from the house. The result is the same complaint in yard after yard: a low corner that stays soggy for days, a soft strip beside the patio, moss where grass should be, and water in the basement after a big storm.

Fixing it starts with finding out where the water is actually coming from and where it can legally and physically go. We look at roof volume and downspout discharge points, the slope of the finish grade against the foundation, sump pump outlets, the neighbor's runoff, and the low points where water collects and sits.

From there the fixes are straightforward: French drains — perforated pipe in a stone-filled, fabric-wrapped trench — to intercept and carry subsurface water; buried downspout extensions with pop-up emitters that get roof water well away from the foundation; catch basins in low spots tied into a solid line; dry creek beds that handle heavy surface flow and look intentional instead of engineered; and regrading to re-establish positive fall away from the house.

Grading work is also the quiet prerequisite for everything else. New sod laid over a low spot will drown. A retaining wall without drainage will lean. A planting bed that holds water will kill every shrub in it. When we are doing any of those jobs, we correct the grade first.

Every drainage project is restored when the work is done — trenches backfilled and compacted, turf repaired or re-sodded, and the property left clean. We will also tell you honestly when a problem is beyond landscape drainage and belongs to a foundation or plumbing contractor.