A wet strip and a price per foot
You have a strip of lawn that stays soft for days after rain, and you want to know what fixing it costs before anyone digs. A French drain is priced by the foot, so the price starts with how long the route is.
Clay Plano Drainage Company prices and builds French drains across Plano and the nearby cities we serve. Our typical range is $25 to $60 per foot. The site visit and written estimate set yours.
What one foot of drain pays for
Each foot on the estimate covers the trench and everything that goes in it, plus its share of the outlet and the cleanup. Here is what sits inside that number:
- The dig. A narrow trench cut to the fall we measured, with the sod cut in strips and the soil kept on tarps.
- Fabric and stone. Filter fabric lines the trench and wraps washed drainage stone, which keeps Plano clay fines out of the stone.
- Pipe. Perforated pipe through the wet zone, solid pipe from there to the outlet, and cleanouts where lines join or turn.
- The outlet. A pop-up emitter in open front lawn or a tie-in to an existing line that already reaches the street.
- Putting it back. Backfill, the cut sod laid back and any sprinkler lines we cross repaired.
A yard pump, deep footing drains and extra basins beyond the first are priced as their own lines, so you can see what each adds.
What pushes a run up or down our range
A foot of drain in one yard can cost more than a foot in the next. These are the things we measure on the visit that decide where your run falls.
| What we look at | A run lands lower when | A run lands higher when |
|---|---|---|
| Depth | The wet layer is shallow and the lot falls steadily to the street | The trench has to start deep to keep its fall to the outlet |
| What’s under the lawn | The trench stays in clay | Chalk turns up within trench depth, as it can in far west Plano |
| Route | A straight line across open lawn | Turns around beds, trees, an AC pad or a pool deck |
| Access | A wide gate and an open side yard | A narrow side yard or no gate, so soil is moved by hand |
| Crossings | Nothing buried in the way | Gas, cable or several sprinkler lines cross the route |
| Outlet | An existing line or open front lawn close by | A curb outlet that needs a city permit, or a long solid run |
| Top layer | Plain sod that goes back in strips | Beds, rock borders or a walk that has to be cut and patched |
The pipe itself is a small share of any of these. Labor and what sits on top of the trench decide most of the spread.
Short drains and long drains
A short drain still needs an outlet, locates, silt controls and a water test, the same as a long one. Spread over fewer feet, that fixed work weighs more on each foot.
So a 30-foot run along one fence can price nearer the top of our range than a long route across an open yard. We show the run length and the outlet as separate items, so you can see why.
When the route gets long
Long routes usually mean the wet area sits far from the street side of the lot. Plano’s Stormwater Design Manual has house lots drain to the street, never onto the lot next door, so the water has to travel to the front, often through a side yard. The guide to where yard drain water can go covers the outlet choices.
What’s inside a Plano French drain price
Some parts of the price trace to public figures from a government agency. Others depend on your yard and are priced from the visit.
| Part of the price | What sets it | Local figure, or how it is priced |
|---|---|---|
| Trenching and pipe work | Hours spent digging, bedding stone and setting pipe, which grow with depth and rock | Pipelayers in the Dallas-Fort Worth area earn a mean $22.84 an hour, against $26.30 nationally (BLS, May 2025) |
| Hand digging and hauling | Soil moved by hand where machines can’t reach, and sod handled twice | Construction laborers earn a mean $21.05 an hour locally, against $25.02 nationally (BLS, May 2025) |
| Trencher or mini excavator | Used where the gate and side yard let it through | Operating engineers earn a mean $26.51 an hour locally, against $31.87 nationally (BLS, May 2025) |
| Fabric, stone, pipe and cleanouts | Run length, and how wide the stone zone needs to be in slow clay | Included in our per-foot range |
| Curb outlet | Plano’s Engineering Permit for public infrastructure covers storm drain and excavation work in the right-of-way | The city sets the fee; it appears as its own line |
| Locates | Texas811 marks buried utilities before any dig | Part of every job |
| Beds, rock and wide sod | Anything beyond the sod we cut and the sprinkler lines we cross | Scope to check on your estimate |
Those wages come from the Bureau of Labor Statistics wage survey, and each local mean sits below its national figure. Labor here costs less per hour than the national average, so a high price usually points back to the depth, rock or route.
Keep in mind that a wage is not a billing rate. What a drainage company bills also carries insurance, vehicles and equipment, supervision, permits and the time spent on visits and travel.
Clay, chalk and the width of the stone
Houston Black clay covers central, east and north Plano and takes in only about 0.03 inches of water an hour. In ground that slow, the stone stores water while the clay gives it up, so we size the stone zone to the wet area.
A wider or longer stone zone adds material and digging, which shows up in the per-foot price. Out west, the rock changes the dig more than the design. The guide to French drains in clay soil explains why the trench is built the way it is.
Illustrative budgets
These examples are illustrative. Each one multiplies our per-foot range by a simple run length; none is a quote or a past job.
| Example layout | How it adds up | Illustrative budget |
|---|---|---|
| A 40-foot run along one side of the house to an existing line that reaches the street | 40 feet at $25 to $60 per foot | $1,000 to $2,400 |
| A 90-foot route from a soggy back corner, down the side yard to a pop-up emitter in the front lawn | 90 feet at $25 to $60 per foot | $2,250 to $5,400 |
| A 120-foot route along a back fence and both side yards, joined to one outlet | 120 feet at $25 to $60 per foot | $3,000 to $7,200 |
A drain that also takes a catch basin at a low spot adds that basin as its own line. A yard with several wet zones may be better priced as a whole-yard drainage system.
An old French drain that quit
If you already have a French drain and it has stopped working, the price starts with finding out why. Our typical range for cleaning the first line is $250 to $600 per visit, with a flow test included.
A crushed or root-blocked section is priced after a camera finds it, by how deep it sits and what lies on top. Drain repair and cleaning covers that work, and the guide on how long a French drain lasts explains what wears one out.
Try your own numbers
The drainage cost estimator applies our per-foot range to the length you enter, along with inlets, downspouts, any concrete to cut and the distance to the outlet. It gives a planning range in a minute.
The written estimate after the site visit sets the final price, because only the visit measures the fall and finds what is buried in the route. For the other jobs we price, see drainage cost in Plano. To talk through your yard, call (469) 551-8518 or send photos through the form below.