Stormwater & Drainage Systems
Catch basins, piping, culverts, detention and outfall. Water is what destroys pavement and concrete, so the drainage goes in before the surface does.
- Catch basins and inlets
- Storm piping and culverts
- Detention and retention
- Outfall and headwalls
- Drainage correction
- Erosion control
Water is what destroys pavement and concrete. Not traffic, not weather, not age. Water.
Almost every failed driveway, parking lot and building pad we get called out to look at failed for the same reason — water got somewhere it shouldn’t, stayed there, and washed the ground out from under the surface. The surface then had to span a void it was never designed to span, and it broke.
Which is why, on our jobs, the drainage goes in before anything covers it.
What we build
Catch basins and inlets. Collecting water at the low points instead of letting it find its own way across the site.
Storm piping. Sized and set to grade so it actually flows, joined properly, bedded properly, and backfilled and compacted so the ground above it doesn’t settle into a trench line two years later.
Culverts and driveway pipe. Getting water under an access point rather than across it. Long farm approaches and rural drives in Aiken County live or die on this.
Detention and retention. Where a development has to hold water back and release it at a controlled rate, so building on the site doesn’t push the problem downstream.
Outfall and headwalls. Getting water out somewhere it can legally and sensibly go, without cutting a gully into whatever is below it.
Drainage correction. The retrofit version — an existing property that floods, holds water, or keeps eating driveways. Usually a combination of regrading to create fall and installing something to carry the water away.
Erosion control. Silt fence, construction entrances, inlet protection and stabilisation, in before the ground is opened rather than after an inspector asks.
Why we install it and then pave it
Most contractors do one piece of a site. A utility contractor sets pipe. A grading contractor cuts the pad. A paving contractor lays asphalt over the top of both. When the surface fails, each of them can point at the others, and the property owner is left holding an argument instead of a driveway.
We clear, grade, drain and then pour or pave, with our own crews at every stage. One company is responsible for the finished job.
That matters more on drainage than anywhere else, because drainage is invisible once the job is done. Nobody can inspect the bedding under a pipe after it is backfilled, or verify that a basin was set to the right elevation once the asphalt is down. You are trusting whoever did it. We would rather that be us, because we are the ones who have to warrant what goes on top.
Diagnosing a property that keeps failing
If a driveway or lot has failed twice in the same place, the surface is not the problem and replacing the surface again will not fix it.
What we look at instead: where water enters the property, what direction the ground actually falls (as opposed to what it looks like it does), where downspouts and gutters discharge, whether existing pipe is crushed, blocked or laid to the wrong grade, whether there is an outfall at all, and what the neighbouring ground is doing.
Sometimes the answer is straightforward — a downspout dumping onto the edge of a driveway, or a culvert that silted up a decade ago. Sometimes it needs regrading and a proper collection system. Either way, we would rather fix the cause once than sell you the same surface three times.
Where we work
Augusta, Evans, Martinez, Grovetown, Hephzibah, Aiken and North Augusta, plus further afield for larger site packages. Residential, commercial, subdivision and municipal work, on both sides of the river.
Call either office and we will come look at where the water is going. Free estimates, no obligation.
Common questions
- Why does my driveway keep failing?
- Almost always water washing the fine material out of the base and leaving a void the surface then has to span. Patching replaces the surface and leaves the void, which is why the failure returns in the same spot. If a driveway has failed twice in one place, stop looking at the surface and find where the water is going. Our guide on why driveways keep failing covers how to read the failure pattern and where the water usually comes from.
- Water stands in my yard after every rain. Is that a drainage job or a grading job?
- Usually both, and they are not really separable. Standing water means the ground has no fall toward anywhere it can leave, or it has fall toward somewhere that is already full. The fix might be regrading to create positive fall, it might be a catch basin and pipe to carry it out, or it might be correcting whatever is blocking the existing outfall. We look at where water enters the property, where it collects and where it can legally go, then build the shortest sensible path between those.
- Can you fix drainage without tearing up the whole driveway?
- Sometimes. If the problem is water arriving from uphill, intercepting it before it reaches the pavement can solve it without touching the driveway at all. If the problem is that the driveway itself has no fall, or that the base beneath it is already washed out, then no — the surface has to come up. We will tell you which one you have before we start rather than after.
- Do I need a permit for drainage work?
- It depends on scale and location. Routine residential drainage correction usually does not. Anything that disturbs an acre or more, ties into a public storm system, alters a stream buffer or affects a neighbouring property generally does. Georgia works through local land disturbance permitting under the Erosion and Sedimentation Act, South Carolina through SCDES. We deal with both routinely and will tell you what your site needs.
- What is detention and do I need it?
- Detention holds stormwater back temporarily and releases it slowly, so that developing a site does not push more water downstream than the land did before. It is normally a commercial requirement rather than a residential one, and it is usually triggered by adding impervious area — roofs, pavement, concrete. If you are building a parking lot or a commercial pad, the plan review will tell you whether detention is required, and we build them.
Questions we get asked about this
Related work
Free estimates, either office
Tell us about the site and we’ll come look at it. No obligation, and no charge for the estimate.