Everyone wants a price before the visit, and that’s fair. Below are the real national ranges so you can sanity-check any quote, plus a straight explanation of what moves the number — and why we won’t pretend to know your exact cost from a web page.
Why We Don’t Publish a Mobile Price
Most “Mobile French drain cost” pages you’ll find are running national averages with a city name pasted on top. We’re not going to do that, because we don’t have verified Mobile-specific pricing data, and a made-up local number is worse than no number — it sets a false expectation the actual job can’t meet.
Drainage is priced by the yard, not by the metro. Two houses on the same street can need very different systems: one on a low, wet-flat lot with a high winter water table needs a deep subsurface drain; the neighbor on a slight rise might need a downspout extension and a little regrading. Same street, very different bill. An honest quote has to start with seeing your grade, your soil, and where the water can be sent.
So the figures below are national industry averages (drawn from cost guides like HomeGuide, Angi, and HomeAdvisor). Use them to spot a quote that’s wildly off — not as a promise of what your yard will cost.
What a French Drain Costs
French drains are usually priced per linear foot, because the trench is the work. Nationally:
- Exterior / perimeter French drain: about $10–$50 per linear foot.
- Yard / trench French drain: about $30–$90 per linear foot, with a typical middle around $20–$30 for straightforward runs.
A short, simple run to a nearby outfall sits at the low end; a long run, a deep trench, or a difficult outfall pushes toward the high end. As a whole project, exterior French drain work commonly lands anywhere from a few hundred dollars for a small job to around $8,000 for a large or complicated one.
One boundary worth stating plainly: those numbers are for exterior, yard-side drainage — the work we do. Interior water-management systems are a different trade and aren’t part of this, and they aren’t the norm on Mobile’s slab-and-crawl housing anyway.
What Whole-Yard Drainage Costs
Many yards don’t need a single French drain — they need a small system: a catch basin at the low spot, rerouted downspouts, maybe a dry well, sometimes light regrading. Nationally, whole-yard or landscape drainage projects commonly run about $2,100 to $7,200, with averages landing near the middle of that range. A single downspout fix or one catch basin is far less; a full regrade with multiple drains and a long outfall is more.
The point of the range isn’t precision — it’s proportion. Yard drainage is a mid-size home project, not a five-figure renovation for most lots, and not a $200 weekend fix either.
What a Drainage Quote Includes
A drainage quote isn’t just pipe, and knowing what’s in it helps you compare two bids fairly. On most jobs the price covers:
- Materials — perforated pipe, washed gravel, filter fabric, fittings, and any catch basins, pop-up emitters, or dry-well chambers the design calls for.
- Labor and equipment — trenching, setting the system to a steady grade, and backfilling. On a French drain this is the bulk of the cost.
- Spoil and disposal — the soil dug out of the trench has to go somewhere, and hauling it off adds up on a long or deep run.
- Surface restoration — putting turf, beds, or hardscape back the way they were, which is a bigger line item on a heavily landscaped lot.
- Permitting where it applies — if the system ties into a public ditch or right-of-way, a city or county permit is generally required, and a reputable contractor prices and handles that rather than skipping it.
When you compare quotes, make sure they cover the same scope. A number that looks low sometimes leaves out restoration, disposal, or the outfall work — the parts that make the system actually function, and the parts you’d end up paying for anyway.
What Actually Drives Your Price
Five things move a drainage quote more than anything else:
- Length of the run. More trench, more pipe, more gravel, more labor. This is usually the biggest single factor.
- Depth. A high water table or a deep outfall means a deeper trench, which is slower and more expensive to dig and backfill.
- Distance to an outfall. Water has to end up somewhere lower — a ditch, a dry well, a daylight point. The farther that is, the more pipe and grading it takes to get there.
- Site access. A tight side yard, fences, mature trees, or hardscape that has to be worked around all add labor versus an open lot a machine can reach.
- Surface restoration. Putting the lawn, beds, or driveway back the way they were is part of the job, and a heavily landscaped yard costs more to restore than bare turf.
Notice what’s not on that list: your ZIP code. Regional labor rates vary a little, but the individual lot drives the number far more than the city does — another reason a site visit beats a web quote.
Cheaper Isn’t Always Cheaper
The most expensive drainage money you can spend is on a system that doesn’t fix your problem. A French drain installed on a well-drained upland lot — where the real issue was a downspout dumping in a low corner — is money in the ground for nothing. So is a shallow surface drain on a lot that’s wet from a high water table.
That’s why we lead with diagnosis, not a product. Figuring out whether you have a water-table problem or a runoff problem is what tells us — and you — which French drain or surface drainage system is worth paying for. Get that right and the money does what you wanted; get it wrong and even a cheap install is wasted.
If you want a real number for your yard, the next step is a free on-site assessment: we look at the lot, tell you which problem you actually have, and put a fixed written quote in front of you before any work starts.
