Standing water, soggy lawns, and water creeping toward the foundation — the drainage problems Tyler’s sandy-over-clay ground creates, and how we fix them.
Tell us what your yard is doing and we’ll come take a look — no charge.
Tyler is where we’re based, and its yards show the whole East Texas drainage story in one city — established neighborhoods under mature trees, newer subdivisions on graded clay, and the same sandy-over-clay ground running under nearly all of it.
Across Smith County the soil is a sandy or sandy-loam surface sitting on a dense clay subsoil — the Kirvin and Cuthbert series that dominate the area carry roughly 35 to 60% clay below the topsoil. Rain soaks the loose top few inches quickly and then stalls on that clay, which drains very slowly. In Tyler’s older neighborhoods, decades of settling, tree roots, and additions have scrambled the original grade, so water finds low spots the builder never intended. In the newer subdivisions south and south-west of town, lots were cut and filled on that clay and the flat backyards have nowhere to shed water. Both end up at our door for the same reason.
Tyler averages about 47.7 inches of rain a year, and it comes in bursts — the wet year of 2015 dropped 68.05 inches on the city, the wettest on record. Drainage here has to be built for the downpour, not the average.
Whatever the yard is doing, we bring the full range to Tyler:
Two Tylers show up in our drainage calls. In the established neighborhoods — the Azalea District, the streets around the historic core, the mid-century additions — the original lot grading has been scrambled by decades of settling, added patios and driveways, beds built up against the house, and big root systems that lift and channel water in ways the builder never planned. The fixes there are often about restoring fall the yard has lost and working around mature landscaping we don’t want to tear out. In the newer subdivisions ringing the city, the problem is the opposite: a flat, freshly graded clay lot that never had fall to begin with. Same water, two different starting points — and we read which one you’ve got before proposing a thing.
Tyler has a lot of established housing stock, and in expansive soil the enemy of a foundation is uneven moisture. Keeping roof water and yard runoff away from the slab — with grading that falls about 0.5 inch per foot over the first 10 feet away from the house, routed downspouts, and a perimeter drain where water collects — is a sensible, preventive step. We install the drainage; we’ll tell you honestly if what you’re seeing needs a foundation professional instead.
From the Azalea District to the newer builds off Old Jacksonville and out toward Cumberland, we cover all of Tyler and the rest of Smith County. Call (903) 228-3172 for a free on-site look.
Free on-site drainage assessments across Tyler and Smith County. We’ll tell you what’s actually causing the water and what it takes to fix it.