Search “drainage contractor” in Mobile, AL and most of what comes back is plumbers. That is a clue worth paying attention to: the water in your yard and the water in your pipes are two different problems, handled by two different trades. If your issue is a lawn that will not dry out, a foundation that stays wet, or a low spot that turns into a pond after every storm, you want a drainage contractor — someone who works outside, in the dirt and the grade.
What a Drainage Contractor Handles — and What We Don’t
Our work is exterior stormwater: getting rain and groundwater to leave your property instead of collecting on it. That means French drains, catch basins, channel drains, dry wells, downspout extensions, and regrading.
It does not mean plumbing or sewer work. A clogged drain line inside the house, a backed-up sewer, or a water main is a plumber’s or the utility’s job. Keeping that line clear matters — it just is not what we do. We stay in the yard, and we are upfront about the boundary so you hire the right trade the first time.
Who Owns the Water in Mobile
It helps to know where your responsibility starts. In Mobile the public side of drainage — the ditches, culverts, and storm drains in the right-of-way — belongs to the City of Mobile’s Storm Water Management program, with Mobile County handling the unincorporated areas. MAWSS, the utility most people think of, runs drinking water and sanitary sewer, not stormwater. The city has been investing in that public network for years, from Three Mile Creek restoration to district drainage projects.
But the water sitting in your yard is private-side. Once it is on your property, moving it is on you — and a good drainage contractor is how you do that without waiting on a public project that was never going to reach your back corner anyway.
Why Local Soil Knowledge Matters
Drainage is a soil problem before it is a pipe problem, and Mobile County’s soils are not uniform. The low, flat ground around the city and out through Prichard, Saraland, and the southern communities is sandy loam over a clay-enriched subsoil that perches water, with a seasonal water table that rises near the surface each winter. The sandy uplands toward West Mobile and Semmes drain freely and rarely have a water-table issue at all.
That difference is obvious the moment you read Mobile County’s soil maps, and invisible to a national playbook. It is the difference between installing a French drain that finally dries out a saturated flat lot and installing one in well-drained upland sand where the real problem was a downspout the whole time. We diagnose against the ground you actually have, using the same USDA soil data that maps this county — not a national playbook.
How We Work
Our process is deliberately simple, because the value is in the diagnosis, not the sales pitch:
- Diagnose. We walk the yard, find where the water collects and why, and identify whether it is surface runoff, a high water table, or both.
- Plan and quote. You get a drainage design matched to your soil, grade, and outfall, plus a fixed written quote — no obligation to move forward.
- Install and test. We build the system, restore the surface, and run water through it to confirm the yard drains before we consider the job finished.
Any permitting for work that connects to a public ditch or right-of-way, we handle as part of that.
Where We Work
We serve Mobile County, Alabama only — Prichard, Saraland, Chickasaw, Satsuma, Tillmans Corner, Theodore, Semmes, Grand Bay, and the communities in between. Baldwin County, across the bay, is a different market we don’t currently cover, so the drainage plans stay grounded in Mobile County’s soils rather than a generic template.
If standing water is costing you the use of your yard, the honest first step is a diagnosis — a look at your lot, your soil, and where the water can be sent. That is what turns a wet yard from a recurring headache into a solved problem.
