It is the clay
Most of the Dallas Fort Worth metroplex sits on expansive clay soil. Clay particles are tiny and pack tightly, so water moves through them slowly. Sandy soil drains inches per hour. Heavy clay can drain a fraction of that. When rain arrives faster than the ground can take it, the surplus sits on top and waits.
The same clay swells as it takes on water and shrinks as it dries. That is why the ground here cracks open in August and why foundations in North Texas move more than they do in most of the country. Drainage is not a cosmetic problem in this soil.
Read your own yard first
Walk the yard during the next real rain, not after it. Where water enters, where it pools, and how fast it leaves tell you more than any photo of the aftermath.
- Water against the house. The ground should fall away from the foundation, roughly 6 inches over the first 10 feet. If it is flat or tilts back, that is the first thing to fix.
- A puddle that never moves. A true low spot. Either regrade it or give the water a path out with a drain.
- Erosion channels and exposed roots. Water is moving fast across the surface. The fix is slowing and redirecting it, not just filling the channel.
- Downspouts dumping at the wall. A roof sheds an enormous volume into a very small area. Extending the discharge well away from the house is the cheapest drainage work there is.
- Moss, mushrooms, or a permanently soft patch. The soil is staying wet even between rains. That is a subsurface issue, which is where a french drain earns its price.
- Water arriving from next door. Common on newer streets. Worth documenting with photos before you spend anything.
Cheapest fix first
- Extend the downspouts. Cheapest possible step, and it resolves a surprising share of wet yards on its own.
- Regrade the surface. Re establishing fall away from the house handles surface water without any pipe in the ground.
- Surface drains and channel drains. For a defined low point or the edge of a patio, a catch basin tied to a discharge line is simpler and cheaper than a full trench.
- French drain. For water held in the soil, or a slope feeding water toward the house. See the french drain page for cost and design.
- Dry well or pump basin. For a flat lot with no lower point to discharge into. More design, more cost, and sometimes the only option.
Be suspicious of anyone who quotes a trench before walking the yard in the rain or asking where the water ends up. The discharge point decides the design, and the design decides the price.