Editorial Policy: How We Research, Write, and Review

Why this site exists

Most yard-drainage information online is published by companies that install drainage. That does not make it wrong, but it does pull it in one direction: toward the fix the publisher happens to sell. A homeowner searching for help often can't tell whether the advice fits their yard or fits the contractor's van.

This site exists to fill that gap. Its only job is to help you understand your own property well enough to make a good decision — and to judge whether the advice you're being given actually applies to your situation.

How we stay independent

The whole value of this site is that its guidance is written for you, not sold to you. We hold to that regardless of how the site earns its keep:

• Our guidance is never for sale. No contractor, brand, or product can pay to appear in our recommendations, to rank above another, or to change what a page says. What we tell you is written for the reader — full stop.
• We install nothing ourselves. We don't do drainage work or quote on it, so we have no job to steer you toward.
• Commercial relationships are disclosed and kept separate. Over time this site may help connect homeowners with local professionals, or earn a commission on drainage products worth recommending. Where that happens it will be clearly labelled and kept apart from our neutral guidance — never dressed up as an impartial recommendation when it isn't one.
• The tools don't harvest you. The Solution Finder runs entirely in your browser and stores nothing. If we ever add a way to request quotes or reach a professional, it will be your choice, plainly marked, and explained before you share anything.
• We don't use fear. Drainage problems get oversold with images of ruined foundations and flooded basements. We keep the tone calm and the claims proportionate.

Our approach to content

Every page starts from the question a homeowner is actually asking, and is written to answer it in plain language, leading with a direct answer. We research each topic against reputable sources — manufacturer technical guidance, established home-improvement publishers, and public agencies such as cooperative extension services and state environmental departments — and where a page relies on specific figures, the sources are listed at its foot.

We build in original diagrams where they make something invisible, like how water moves through soil, easier to grasp. Before a page publishes it is reviewed for accuracy and for the guardrails below, and every page carries a "last reviewed" date so you can see how current it is.

We aim to be accurate, but drainage is a field of ranges and local variation, not fixed numbers. If you find something wrong or out of date, tell us — corrections are welcome, and we would rather fix an error than defend it.

The guardrails every page holds to

These are not aspirations. They are rules we apply to every page, and you can hold us to them:

• We never promise a fix will work without a site inspection. No one can diagnose a yard they haven't stood in. We say what a solution commonly suits, never what you definitely need.
• We state what a fix won't do. Every solution page has a "when this is the wrong answer" section. That section is the clearest test of whether guidance is honest.
• Costs are always planning ranges, never quotes. Real prices depend on access, depth, soil, distance to an outlet, and local rates — none of which we can see.
• We don't give definitive structural, engineering, legal, permit, or easement advice. Where a question crosses into those areas — water rights between neighbours, permit requirements, foundation movement — we describe the landscape and point you to the right professional, plainly labelled as not our advice to give.
• We frame outcomes as likelihood, not certainty. "Often indicates," "commonly helps," "usually the cause" — because drainage genuinely varies with grade, soil, rainfall, layout, and installation quality.

Who writes this

Content is produced and reviewed by the Under Your Home Team, the editorial group behind a small family of independent home-maintenance sites covering crawl spaces, foundations, basement waterproofing, and yard drainage. The shared aim across all of them is the same: help homeowners understand what's happening under and around their homes well enough to ask better questions.

We are writers and researchers, not licensed engineers, surveyors, or contractors, and we don't present ourselves as any of those. What we offer is careful, sourced, independent explanation — and clear signposting to the professionals whose job the rest is.

A note on what this site can't do

It cannot see your yard. Nothing written in advance substitutes for someone standing on your property, measuring the fall, confirming where water can discharge, and assessing the soil. Everything here is designed to make that conversation a better one — to help you arrive informed, ask sharper questions, and recognise a sound answer when you hear it. Treat it as a starting point, not a plan.

Related

• Disclaimer — the limits of the guidance here, stated in full
• About this site
• Who to call for yard drainage