Monroe sits on the Skykomish, with the fairgrounds on the edge of town. River-bottom ground stays wet, and a yard built as if the water table were low will heave, puddle, or grow moss until someone deals with the water. If the wet spot is groundwater from the river, a pipe will run full and still not dry the lawn. We use drains for roof and surface water on the bench, not as a promise to lower the water table.
Snohomish County · ZIP 98272 · 2020 population 19,608
A drain cannot beat the river
We outlet to a ditch or a slope that is above the ordinary high water. A pipe that outlets below that line runs backward when the river is up. We have seen it, and we will not build it.
Surface drains and regrading solve the puddle by the shop. They do not make a floodplain into a basement. If that is the hope, we stop and talk before anyone rents a trencher.
The ground in Monroe
We see two kinds of lots. In town, smaller yards with the usual compacted soil and a lawn that has to look fine for most of the year. Closer to the river and the low ground, soils that remember high water. Gravel and drains belong there. A finished bark bed in a spot that floods is mulch in the neighbor’s fence line by spring.
The fair is part of the calendar. People want yards cleaned up and hedges cut back before the traffic and the guests, and they want storm debris gone after the first big fall wind. Trees on these lots — including the old fruit trees — need pruning that opens them up, not a topping that makes them dangerous. Native plantings along the wet edges do the work a lawn cannot.
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 Monroe
- Gravel installation in Monroe
- Landscaping in Monroe
- Patio installation in Monroe
- French drain installation in Sultan
- French drain installation in Snohomish
- French drain installation in Gold Bar
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.
