How do I know if I have a drainage problem in my yard?

The reliable tells: water standing more than a day or two after rain, ground that stays mushy between rains, mosquito swarms, white mineral stains on the foundation, erosion channels in beds or lawn, patches of dying grass in low spots, and moisture under the house. Any two together mean the yard is not moving water.

How long should water stand in a yard after rain?

Puddles after a hard Louisiana rain are normal. They should drain or evaporate within about 24 to 48 hours. Water still standing after two days, or puddles that form on light rain, points to compacted soil, bad grading, or a high water table, and it will not fix itself.

How do I fix bad drainage in my yard?

Match the fix to the cause. Roof water at the slab wants downspout extensions. A yard pitched wrong wants regrading. Saturated ground wants a french drain. Low collection points want catch basins. Most wet Louisiana yards need two of these working together, which is why a real diagnosis comes before any digging.

What will soak up standing water in my yard?

Nothing soaks up water faster than giving it somewhere to go. Plants and amendments help at the margins, but in our clay, absorption is the weakest tool. Grading that moves water off the lot, a drain that intercepts it, or a basin that collects it will outperform anything you plant, especially in winter when the ground is already full.

Who do I call about yard drainage problems?

A dirt-work and drainage contractor, not a lawn service. Standing water is a grading and subsurface problem, and fixing it involves equipment, trenching, and sometimes permits. We diagnose and build drainage across the Northshore, and estimates are free. For a ditch or culvert on parish right-of-way, the parish handles those through work orders.

Can standing water damage a slab foundation?

Yes. Louisiana's expansive clay swells when soaked and shrinks when dry, and uneven moisture around a slab causes uneven movement, the differential settlement behind most foundation trouble. A study of Louisiana expansive-soil damage put statewide property losses at roughly $66 million a year. Keeping water away from the slab is foundation protection.

How do you know if your yard has a drainage problem?

Seven signs tell the story: water standing longer than 24 to 48 hours after rain, ground that stays mushy, mosquitoes breeding, white stains on the foundation, erosion channels, patches of dying grass, and moisture under the house. One sign might be a fluke. Two or more mean the yard is holding water it should be shedding, and in Louisiana that costs you more the longer it runs.

Here is each sign, what it means, and the fix that usually matches it.

The 7 signs, and what each one means

Sign	What it points to	The usual fix
Standing water 24–48+ hours	Soil or grade cannot move the volume	French drain, regrading
Mushy lawn between rains	Saturated subsoil, high water table	French drain
Mosquito swarms	Water standing 5+ days somewhere	Eliminate the standing water
White stains (efflorescence) on the slab or brick	Water wicking through the foundation	Drainage away from the slab
Erosion channels, washed-out mulch	Concentrated surface flow	Regrading, swale, downspout work
Dying or yellowing grass patches	Roots drowning in oxygen-starved soil	Grading plus drainage
Damp crawl space or slab edge	Water collecting against the house	Perimeter drainage, grade correction

Standing water is the headline sign

Puddles after a Louisiana downpour are normal. Puddles still there two days later are not. Lawn-care companies and university extension services use the same threshold: water should drain or evaporate within about a day or two. There is even a simple test from Colorado State’s extension service: dig a hole about a foot deep, fill it with water, and watch. If it has not drained in 30 minutes, drainage is poor; if it is still holding water a full day later, the soil is genuinely waterlogged.

St. Tammany Parish takes the mosquito side of this seriously enough that the parish mosquito abatement district runs a standing-water registry and will send a field biologist to inspect, their trigger is water that has not drained in five or more days. If your yard qualifies for a parish mosquito inspection, it qualifies for drainage work.

Why Louisiana yards fail faster than most

Three local facts stack against your lawn. First, the rain: southeast Louisiana averages more than 60 inches a year, among the highest in the country, and the 4-inch-in-a-day storms have been hitting record frequency. The August 2016 event dropped 20 to 30 inches in parts of the state. Second, the ground: flat terrain and clay-heavy, slow-draining soils mean water that lands often has nowhere to go. Third, the houses: with our high water table ruling out basements, nearly everything here sits on a slab, right at ground level, right where the water collects.

That third fact is why drainage is a foundation issue and not just a lawn issue. Research on Louisiana’s expansive soils puts historical property losses around $66 million a year statewide, from clay that swells when wet and shrinks when dry. The same study projects that by 2050, the single worst census block in the state for expansive-soil losses sits in St. Tammany Parish. Uneven moisture around a slab moves the slab unevenly. Standing water against your foundation is the mechanism, and drainage is the cure.

Matching the fix to the sign

The fixes run a ladder from simple to structural, and the right one depends on where your water comes from:

Downspout extensions when roof water dumps at the slab.
Regrading when the yard pitches toward the house or holds bowl-shaped low spots. About 6 inches of fall in the first 10 feet away from the house is the standard.
French drains when the ground itself stays saturated, a gravel-and-pipe trench that intercepts subsurface water and carries it to an outlet.
Catch basins and area drains when water collects at a predictable low point.
Swales when sheet flow needs a shaped path across the lot.
Rain gardens for low spots you would rather plant than pipe, an approach the LSU AgCenter recommends where practical.

Most wet yards here need two fixes working together, grading to handle the surface water and a drain to handle what is in the ground. That pairing is exactly what our sitework and drainage crews build, and because we do our own grading and dirt work, it ships as one scope instead of two contractors and a gap in between. For what the bigger fixes cost, our french drain cost guide has the real numbers.

When to stop watching and call

If you have hit two or more signs on the list, the yard has told you what it needs. The wet season makes it worse: from December through April the water table under much of the Northshore sits within a few feet of the surface, so every rain lands on ground that is already full. A twenty-minute walk of the property tells us where the water starts, where it should exit, and what the fix actually requires. Estimates are free, and a dry yard is a solvable problem.