Dunwoody is where the water starts
Perimeter Creek begins in Dunwoody. So do the tributaries that run through Brook Run Park, which the city has been working to stabilise because the banks are unstable enough to be pushing sediment and bacteria downstream. Everything here eventually reaches Nancy Creek and then the Chattahoochee, and the upper Nancy Creek watershed that Dunwoody shares with Brookhaven, Chamblee, Doraville and Sandy Springs is already well past the impervious level at which streams start to come apart.
At the scale of one property that translates into a few very familiar complaints. The low corner that never dries. The side yard you cannot mow in spring. A downspout that has dug its own trench across a bed. Mulch washing onto the driveway after every storm. And the expensive one: ground that slopes back toward the house, so that water sits against the foundation every time it rains hard.
None of that is a rainfall problem. It is a where-does-it-go problem, and on red clay it is a solvable one.
Call (404) 369-0989 or book a free site visit. Drainage and grading are quoted after we have seen the fall of the land, ideally while it is still wet.
Grading, which is the half most people skip
Pipes get all the attention, but a good share of Dunwoody yards need the ground moved before anything is buried in it. Fifty years of settling, added patios, extra fill from a rebuild next door and beds built up against the house have left a lot of these lots pitched the wrong way.
Regrading and surface shaping. Re-establishing a positive fall away from the foundation, taking the crown out of a spot that traps water, shaping a shallow swale that moves a storm across a yard without a pipe at all. Where it works, this is the cheapest and longest-lasting answer there is, because there is nothing to clog.
Slope and erosion repair. Bare clay banks in the older Dunwoody neighbourhoods shed soil every storm. We repair them with terracing, Dirt Locker systems on the steep ones, and deep-rooted natives, little bluestem, river oats, Piedmont azalea, so the bank holds itself within a couple of seasons rather than depending on fabric forever.
Terracing. On the steeper lots in Dunwoody Club Forest, Hidden Branches and Withmere, two or three low walls with planted benches between them solve grade and drainage together and give you usable garden as a side effect. That work is on the retaining walls page.
The buried work
Downspout collection. The cheapest large improvement on almost every property here. Roof water is a huge share of what lands on your lot, and most houses release all of it within three feet of the foundation. Collected into solid pipe and taken to daylight well away from the house, it stops being the problem.
Catch basins and area drains. For the corner that will always be the low corner, and for the bottom of a driveway that funnels water at a garage door.
Dry creek beds. A stone channel sized for a real storm that reads as part of the garden the rest of the year. Low maintenance, and it gives us somewhere to plant.
French drains. When the water is subsurface, or arriving from uphill, a properly built French drain is the tool. The construction detail matters more than the pipe does, and we have written all of it up separately: French drain installation.
Why red clay changes the answer
Dunwoody sits on the Cecil soil series, a thin sandy loam over deep red clay full of kaolinite and mica. Well drained on paper, and much less so in practice once the topsoil has eroded off, which on many of these lots it has. The soil surveys are blunt about the other issue: this clay has little ability to recover from compaction. Once construction traffic or a rebuild next door has pressed it down, infiltration drops and stays down for years.
So the advice you find online, aerate it and let it soak in, does not get you very far here. Water on a Dunwoody lot generally has to be moved sideways on purpose, to a place where letting it go does no harm to you, to your neighbour, or to the creek at the bottom of the hill.
Permits, buffers and the gravel rule
Dunwoody requires a land disturbance permit for grading, grubbing, tree removal, driveway work and stormwater work, and it comes with an erosion control bond. That is the permit most drainage-plus-grading projects sit under, and we handle it.
Anything inside the 75-foot stream buffer needs approval before it is touched. With Perimeter Creek and the Brook Run tributaries running through the city, more properties are affected than people expect, and the city arborist on 678-382-6820 is the right first call on trees near water.
The rule that catches homeowners is impervious coverage. A street-facing yard is limited to 35 percent, gravel counts toward it, and a gravel drive needs a durable border and a concrete apron. If your fix involves adding gravel or hard surface at the front, check that before you buy materials.
And where the water is allowed to end up is not a free choice. Concentrating your runoff onto the property next door is how a drainage project turns into a neighbour dispute. We work out the outlet first and, if there is no sensible or legal one, we will tell you at the site visit rather than after the invoice.
A quiet dig, and a lot that holds more water than it did
Drainage is the loudest, least glamorous work we do, and it happens in a back yard within earshot of everyone. Our excavation and trenching equipment is battery powered and charges off a solar trailer, so there is no diesel engine running all day, no fuel cans on your driveway and no exhaust in the garden. Dunwoody rules keep contractors off mowers and blowers before 7:30 a.m. or after 8:30 p.m. on weekdays, 8 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. on Saturdays and nothing on Sundays or holidays, and our schedule sits well inside that.
The bigger environmental point is design, not equipment. In a watershed this built up, piping your problem to the street faster is only fair to you. Where the lot allows it we build somewhere for water to pause and soak: a dry creek bed over a stone reservoir, a rain garden at the low corner planted with river oats, Joe-pye weed, winterberry and American hornbeam, permeable surfaces instead of solid ones. It costs about the same as a pipe, and it takes load off Perimeter Creek instead of adding to it. That thinking is why the City of Dunwoody gave us its 2023 Sustainability Hero Award in the business category.
Questions Dunwoody homeowners ask about drainage and grading
Water sits against my foundation after every storm. What fixes it? Usually two things together: collecting every downspout into solid pipe and taking it well away from the house, and regrading the ground so it falls away from the foundation instead of toward it. Beds built up above the slab are a common culprit. A pipe alone rarely solves it if the grade is wrong.
Do I need a permit for drainage work in Dunwoody? A simple downspout run generally does not. Grading, grubbing, tree removal and stormwater work sit under a land disturbance permit with an erosion control bond, and anything within the 75-foot stream buffer needs approval. We establish which applies before we start.
Is regrading cheaper than a French drain? Often, and it lasts longer because there is nothing to silt up. It only works where there is somewhere for the water to go on the surface. When there is not, or when the water is coming from uphill or from below, a drain is the right tool.
My neighbour’s yard drains into mine. What are my options? On your own land, an interceptor drain along the property line taken to a discharge point downhill, sometimes with a catch basin at the wettest point. We start there because it is within your control. What the neighbour was obliged to do about stormwater is a question for the city.
Can I put gravel down in the wet spot? Be careful. Gravel counts as impervious surface in Dunwoody and a street-facing yard is capped at 35 percent coverage. Gravel over clay also tends to sink into it and stop draining within a couple of years unless it is built on a proper base with fabric.
Will trenching wreck the lawn? There is a visible line for a season. We lift and replace sod where we can, and reseed or re-sod the rest. By the second mow most people cannot find where the trench ran.
When is the best time to call? While it is still wet. We can read a yard far more accurately with water standing in it than we can two dry weeks later, when everyone is describing a puddle from memory.
What does it cost? It depends on trench length and depth, how far the outlet is, whether grading and sod are involved, and access. Two yards on the same street can differ by a factor of three, so we do not publish numbers. The site visit is free and you get a written scope.
Nearby
Dunwoody is home for us, so we are usually a few minutes away. Everything else we do here is on the Dunwoody page, and the same water problems run downhill into Brookhaven, Chamblee, Doraville, Sandy Springs and Peachtree Corners. The wider method, grading, erosion control and dry creek beds, is on the drainage, French drains and grading page, and if the yard needs rebuilding once the water is sorted, see backyard makeovers in Dunwoody. Client comments are on the reviews page.
Book a site visit
Tell us where the water sits and how long it stays. (404) 369-0989 · book a free site visit. Drainage and grading are priced after that visit, in writing, with the outlet, the depth and the restoration written into the scope.