Edmonds faces the Sound. Salt air reaches the patios, the wind comes off the water, and the soils change as you move up off the beach — sandier near the shore, heavier as the hills rise toward the ferry and the bowl downtown. Lots above the ferry and the bluff shed water through the yard. We catch it before it hits the patio and the bank, and we do not outlet a concentrated pipe over a sandy bluff.
Snohomish County · ZIP 98020 · 2020 population 42,690
Hillside water on the way to the Sound
A pipe that daylighted over the lip of a bank is how you start a gully. We spread that water, we tie it to a solid drain the city already has, or we hold it in a line that runs to a safe low point. Sandy soil near the shore will take some water. Clay up the hill will not. We dig the line where the water is actually stuck.
Salt air is hard on cheap fittings. We use solid parts at every turn and we do not bury a leak you will meet again in the basement.
The ground in Edmonds
A yard with a view of the water is also a yard in the wind. Screens and plantings have to stand up to salt and to gusts that shred a soft shrub in one winter. Madrone, shore pine, and kinnikinnick already grow on these bluffs for a reason. We use that palette when a client wants the bank to stay put without a weekly watering schedule.
Lower down, salt film builds on pavers and railings, and a pressure-wash is maintenance, not a one-time event. Retaining work on the west-facing slopes is about holding a sandy bank, with drainage behind the wall so the hill does not load up and shove. The older neighborhoods up the hill have more conventional clay and bigger trees, so we do not treat every Edmonds lot like a beach cottage.
How we do the work
A French drain is a perforated pipe in washed rock, wrapped so the fines do not fill it, sloped to a place the water can actually leave. We do not end a drain in a dry well of hope, and we do not outlet it at the neighbor’s shed.
The trench is deep enough to catch the water you are chasing, which is often the downspout and the wet line along the foundation, not a decorative strip in the middle of the lawn. Surface grading still matters. A drain cannot fix a patio that pitches at the house.
What we look at first
- Where the water shows up, and where it can daylight
- Downspouts that are dumping at the footing
- Utilities before we trench
- Whether the wet spot is a seep that will need more than one line
Maintenance
Silt arrives. Cleanouts and a flush every few years keep the pipe a pipe. Catch basins, if we used one, need the leaves emptied. A drain with no access becomes a dig when it clogs, so we put the access in.
Cost follows the outlet
A short line with an easy daylight is a different job from a line that has to cross a drive, miss a gas service, and reach a ditch fifty feet away. We price it after we see the outlet. We do not quote a per-foot number from the curb.
Downspouts
Solid pipe until it is away from the house, then into the drain if the drain can take the roof. We do not dump a whole roof into a two-inch pop-up in the middle of the lawn and call it drainage.
More from this crew
- French drain installation across Snohomish County
- Retaining walls in Edmonds
- Gravel installation in Edmonds
- Landscaping in Edmonds
- Patio installation in Edmonds
- French drain installation in Mukilteo
- French drain installation in Lynnwood
- French drain installation in Woodway
Sources for the climate and the water
- USDA plant hardiness map for choosing plants that can take a Snohomish County winter.
- EPA WaterSense on watering less once a lawn or a new planting is established.
- EPA Soak Up the Rain on keeping roof and yard water from becoming someone else’s problem.
