Hear from Our Customers
Standing water isn’t just ugly. In Marple Township, where a lot of the housing stock dates back to the 1950s and 1960s, the original lot grading has had decades to settle, compact, and stop performing the way it was designed to. What looked fine in 1965 isn’t cutting it now especially with the runoff volumes created by added driveways, patios, and impervious surface that was never part of the original plan.
When grading and drainage are corrected together, the results are immediate and lasting. Your lawn stops drowning after rain. The soil around your foundation dries out. The basement stays dry. The soggy corner of the yard that’s been unusable for years becomes usable again. These aren’t small quality-of-life improvements for a home worth $350,000 to $600,000 in this part of Delaware County, they’re property protection.
Marple Township also sits in the watersheds of Crum Creek and Darby Creek, which means valley-adjacent and low-lying properties aren’t just dealing with their own runoff they’re receiving water from upslope neighbors too. A drainage system engineered for your specific lot, with the right slope and the right outlet, handles that load. One that wasn’t designed with this terrain in mind won’t.
We’ve been working across Delaware County for more than 15 years, out of Aston, PA. That’s not a marketing number it means we’ve worked in the same Piedmont terrain, the same clay-heavy soils, and the same postwar neighborhoods that define Marple Township. We know how this ground behaves when Crum Creek runs high in March. We know what happens to a 1960s split-level lot in Broomall or Lawrence Park when the original grade has been slowly reversing toward the foundation for two decades.
The same crew that assesses your property installs your drainage system. There’s no handoff to a subcontractor, no communication breakdown between the person who diagnosed the problem and the person doing the work. Renato and his team handle it start to finish, which means when something needs adjusting mid-project, it gets adjusted not debated between two separate companies.
If you’re in Broomall, Lawrence Park, or anywhere in Marple Township, you’re getting a Delaware County contractor who’s worked this county long enough to know it isn’t all the same.
It starts with a site assessment, not a sales pitch. Before anything gets recommended, we look at your specific lot the slope, the low points, where water is entering, where it’s sitting, and where it needs to go. In Marple Township, that assessment matters more than most places because the Piedmont topography varies significantly from one block to the next. A flat-topped lot in Lawrence Park drains completely differently than a hillside property near one of the Crum Creek tributaries. The solution has to match the terrain, not the other way around.
From there, we develop a plan that addresses both grading and drainage infrastructure together. That might mean regrading the lot to restore proper slope toward a designed outlet. It might mean installing a French drain, a catch basin, a dry well, or some combination of all three depending on what your property actually needs. If your project triggers Marple Township’s stormwater management requirements under Chapter 257 which was updated in September 2024 we handle the documentation and compliance side of that so it doesn’t become your problem after the work is done.
Installation is straightforward from your end. We handle the utility marking through Pennsylvania’s 811 process before any digging starts. The crew works clean, stays on schedule, and leaves the site graded, seeded, and ready to function. You’ll know what to expect at every stage before we start.
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Not every yard in Marple needs the same solution. French drain installation in Delaware County is one of the most common fixes we install a perforated pipe in a gravel trench that intercepts groundwater and surface runoff and redirects it to a safe outlet. For a lot of the properties in Broomall and Lawrence Park, a French drain running to a daylight outlet at the property edge is exactly what’s needed. But some lots don’t have a viable daylight outlet, and those need a dry well instead. Others have surface water coming from multiple directions and need a catch basin system to collect it before it reaches the foundation.
What you get with us isn’t a one-size answer. It’s a diagnosis first, then the right installation for your specific outdoor drainage situation in Marple Township. Materials are selected for Delaware County’s freeze-thaw climate pipe depth, gravel wrap, and outlet placement are all chosen to hold up through Pennsylvania winters, not just perform in mild conditions. A system installed without that in mind can heave, shift, or clog within a few years.
Yard drainage solutions in Delaware County start around $5,000 for a straightforward French drain installation and vary based on the scope of grading work, the length of the drainage run, and whether a dry well or catch basin is needed. We provide a clear written estimate before anything starts no surprises after the fact.
The most common reason is a combination of degraded lot grading and soil that’s lost its ability to drain properly over time. In Marple Township, most of the residential lots were graded in the 1950s and 1960s when the neighborhoods were developed. Over 60-plus years, that original grade settles, compacts, and in many cases reverses meaning the slope that was designed to carry water away from your foundation is now directing it toward it instead.
The underlying geology makes this worse. Marple sits in the Piedmont physiographic province, where metamorphic bedrock is often close to the surface and clay-bearing soils are common. Clay absorbs water slowly and releases it even more slowly, so even a moderate rain event can leave your yard saturated for two or three days. If your lot also receives runoff from neighboring properties which is common for valley-adjacent homes near Crum Creek tributaries the volume your drainage system has to handle is higher than what your original lot grading was ever designed for. Fixing it means addressing both the slope and the drainage pathway, not just one.
They solve different parts of the same problem, and in a lot of cases, yes you need both. Regrading reshapes the surface of your lot so that water flows in the right direction, away from your foundation and toward a designed outlet. A French drain provides the underground pathway for water that the surface grade alone can’t handle intercepting groundwater and subsurface flow before it reaches problem areas.
If you only regrade without installing drainage infrastructure, water will eventually pool at the new low point with nowhere to go. If you only install a French drain without correcting the grade, you’re still directing water toward the foundation at the surface level and relying entirely on the drain to compensate. For most properties in Broomall and the surrounding Marple Township neighborhoods, the permanent fix involves correcting the grade first, then installing the appropriate drainage system to manage what the corrected grade channels toward the outlet. That’s why we assess both before recommending either.
It depends on the scope of the project. Marple Township has a formal Stormwater Management Ordinance Chapter 257 that was comprehensively updated in September 2024. Under that ordinance, projects involving regulated impervious surfaces of 1,000 square feet or more, or earth disturbances of 5,000 square feet or more, require a stormwater management site plan, erosion and sediment control documentation, and as-built plan submissions after the work is complete. The township also has a standalone chapter governing grading, drainage, and erosion control Chapter 159 which may apply depending on the extent of grading work involved.
For smaller residential drainage projects that fall below those thresholds, formal site plan submission may not be required, but Pennsylvania’s 811 utility notification process is mandatory before any excavation regardless of project size. If your property is in or near one of Marple Township’s formally mapped flood hazard areas along Crum Creek or Darby Creek, additional floodplain management provisions under Chapter 143 may also apply. We review the regulatory picture for your specific project during the assessment phase so you know exactly what’s required before work begins.
A properly installed French drain should last 30 to 40 years. The word “properly” carries a lot of weight in Delaware County specifically, because the freeze-thaw cycling that Marple Township experiences every winter is genuinely hard on drainage infrastructure that wasn’t installed with Pennsylvania’s climate in mind.
The two most common failure points are insufficient pipe depth and inadequate gravel wrap. Pipe installed too shallow will heave when the ground freezes and shifts, which breaks the drainage slope and can disconnect fittings. A French drain installed without the right fabric and gravel wrap around the pipe will eventually clog as frost-induced soil migration pushes fine particles into the drainage aggregate. When we install French drains in Marple, pipe depth and material selection are determined by Delaware County’s climate requirements not by what’s fastest or cheapest to install. A system that holds up through 30 Pennsylvania winters costs more upfront than one that doesn’t, but it doesn’t need to be excavated and redone in year seven.
Yes, and it’s one of the more expensive problems to ignore. When water consistently pools against or near a foundation whether from surface runoff, a reversed grade, or a failed drainage system it creates hydrostatic pressure against the foundation walls. Over time, that pressure causes cracks, bowing, and in serious cases, structural movement. Water that infiltrates through foundation cracks creates a secondary problem: basement moisture and mold, which carries its own remediation cost.
For homeowners in Marple Township, where average home values run between $350,000 and $600,000, foundation repair costs typically start around $10,000 and can exceed $25,000 for significant structural issues. Basement mold remediation adds several thousand more. A French drain installation or grading correction that prevents those outcomes costs a fraction of that. The other factor worth noting is resale: buyers in the Marple Newtown School District market do their due diligence, and a home with documented drainage problems or visible foundation moisture creates a negotiating issue that a properly functioning outdoor drainage system eliminates entirely.
Late summer through fall is generally the best window roughly August through October for a few practical reasons. The ground is workable, the weather is predictable, and scheduling is more flexible than the spring rush. More importantly, getting drainage infrastructure installed before winter means it’s in the ground and functioning before the freeze-thaw cycling starts, which protects the installation from its first season of stress rather than exposing fresh work to it.
Spring is when most Marple homeowners realize they have a drainage problem, because that’s when snowmelt combines with heavy rain and makes the issue impossible to ignore. That timing creates a backlog for drainage contractors across Delaware County from March through May. If you’re seeing standing water in your yard this spring, it’s worth getting the assessment done now so the project can be scheduled and completed before the next cycle starts. Fall is also when Tropical Storm Ida-type events have historically caused the most significant flooding along Crum Creek September 2021 being the most recent major example so having a functioning system in place before that window is a practical consideration for properties anywhere near the Crum Creek or Darby Creek watersheds.
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