Yard Drainage Cost in North Texas

The short version

Component pricing

Item	DFW range	Notes
French drain, installed	$25–$35 per linear foot	Multiple North Texas contractors converge here
50 ft run	$1,500–$2,000
100 ft run	$3,000–$5,000
Catch basin	$150–$300	Small to medium, installed
Pop-up emitter	$50–$100
Downspout burial / tie-in	$300–$450 per downspout	Add up your downspouts before you read a bid
Underground gutter drainage, per side of home	$1,600–$3,100
Curb drain / core-through	$400–$700	Permitted work in most Denton County cities
Regrading around the foundation	$500–$2,500
Swale	$825–$3,100	National model data
Dry well	$1,334–$5,139	National data, and see the FAQ — usually the wrong tool here

Sources are DFW and North Texas contractor-published pricing where marked; the swale and dry well figures come from national cost models, which we have flagged rather than presented as local.

What the low end actually gets you

$1,600 to $2,500 buys one problem area solved. In practice that is roughly forty to sixty linear feet of four-inch corrugated pipe in a gravel-wrapped trench, one or two catch basins in the low spot, a pop-up emitter where it daylights, and the trench backfilled with the sod patched back over it.

What it does not include: rigid pipe, gutter tie-ins, regrading, cleanouts, or much in the way of landscape restoration.

That is a legitimate scope for a single stubborn low spot. It is not a whole-property drainage system, and the difference matters when you are comparing it against a bid that is one.

What the high end includes

$5,000 to $12,000 on a complex property typically means rigid SDR-35 or Schedule 40 PVC rather than corrugated flex, multiple catch basins, every downspout tied in underground, a curb core for positive discharge, regrading around the foundation, cleanouts for maintenance, cutting and restoring any hardscape in the way, and full landscape restoration afterwards.

The one thing that explains most bid gaps

Corrugated flexible pipe versus rigid PVC. A local contractor names this explicitly as a top cost driver, and it is the single most common apples-to-oranges comparison homeowners make without knowing it.

Once the trench is closed and the sod is back down, the two look identical. They do not age identically. Flex pipe’s ridged interior traps silt — and North Texas clay produces a lot of silt — so capacity degrades. It also deforms under load.

What drives your number up

1. Pipe specification — the invisible one, above.
2. Excavation depth and clay. Difficult site conditions can add twenty percent or more, and trenching North Texas hardpan is frequently hand work rather than machine work.
3. Distance to a legal discharge point. If there is no fall to daylight, you are into a curb core or a more involved solution.
4. Number of downspouts captured. At $300–$450 each, this line item scales fast.
5. Hardscape crossings. Cutting under a driveway, walk or patio and restoring it properly.
6. Access. Whether a machine can reach the work, or every yard of spoil goes out by wheelbarrow through a gate.

Costs people do not budget for

• Landscape and sod restoration. Trenching leaves a scar across everything it crosses. Ask whether restoration is in the number.
• Irrigation repairs. On an established property, trenching through an existing sprinkler system is close to unavoidable. It should be in the scope, not a change order.
• Curb-cut permits, which vary by city across Denton County.
• Cleanouts and periodic jetting. French drains silt up in clay. Almost nobody quotes maintenance.
• The second phase. Fixing the back yard sometimes just relocates water to the side yard. A whole-property look first is cheaper than two separate jobs.

Why North Texas is its own case

Expansive Blackland Prairie clay swells when wet and shrinks when dry, which is why drainage here is sold as foundation protection rather than as landscaping. Clay also means water does not percolate — so solutions that rely on infiltration, like dry wells, underperform relative to their national reputation. And the region’s boom-and-bust rainfall, long dry spells broken by three-inch downpours, creates exactly the wet-dry cycling that moves slabs.

That is not marketing. It is the reason the correct drainage answer in Denton County is often different from the answer a national cost calculator gives you.