French Drains and Yard Drainage in Olathe, KS

Subdivision drainage and shared swales

Most of Olathe was built from the 1980s onward, in subdivisions laid across gentle slopes between I-35 and K-7. The plats were designed to move water between houses into side-yard and rear-yard swales that serve several lots at once. When one owner fills in a swale, adds a fence footing across it, or lets it settle flat, the water backs up into the yards around it. A lot of Olathe drainage calls are about restoring that path: reshaping the swale with grading, or putting a French drain under it where the ground stays soft.

Basements with sump pits

Olathe houses of this era were typically built with poured basements and a sump pit. The pit collects water from the footing drain, and the pump sends it outside. When the pump runs for hours after a storm, it is usually telling you that water is being delivered to the foundation too fast: roof water from downspouts that empty close to the house, or a backward grade on one side. Moving that water away outside, often with buried downspout lines, shortens the pump's run time. Where a pit discharges back beside the house, re-routing the discharge is part of the job.

Around the county seat

The older blocks near downtown Olathe and the courthouse have smaller lots and older foundations, where water tends to show up at the wall-to-floor joint and interior drain tile comes into the picture. Utilities are marked through Kansas811 first. We also work in neighbouring Lenexa, Overland Park and Shawnee.

Olathe drainage questions