How to Design and Build a Cozy Outdoor Patio Fire Pit Area

Struggling with side yard water problems in Minneapolis–St. Paul? See when French drains or re-grading works best for small yard drainage fixes.

Protect your Plymouth patio and deck from frost heave by installing French drains that keep clay soil dry around hardscape and footings.

One Edina family had a 25-foot slope and nowhere for their kids to play. See how we turned it into a lawn, sport court, and fire pit.

See how one Plymouth project turned an overlooked side yard into a design feature that matches the rest of the property.

A Plymouth family turned a steep, unusable side yard into a private hot tub area with stone steps, drainage solutions, and boulder walls.

See how a Plymouth family replaced basic builder landscaping with a custom flagstone walkway, strategic plantings, and a front yard that matches their home.

Learn how French drains solve drainage problems in tight Minneapolis side yards without sacrificing walkway space or function.

Stop roof water and sump pump discharge from saturating your Plymouth yard. Learn how to tie everything into one drainage system.

Where All That Water Is Actually Coming From  Your backyard stays wet. You've noticed the soggy spots, the mud, maybe some frost heave damage to your patio or fence. You're thinking about French drains. But before you start digging trenches, look up. A huge amount of water hitting your yard isn't coming from rain falling on the lawn. It's coming from your roof. A moderate rainfall on a typical Plymouth home puts hundreds of gallons through your gutter system. Every bit of that water exits through your downspouts. Where it goes from there determines whether you have a drainage problem or not. Then there's your sump pump. Every time it kicks on, it's pushing water out of your basement and into your yard. On a wet property, that pump might run dozens of times a day. All that water has to go somewhere. If your downspouts dump water next to your foundation and your sump pump discharges into a side yard that drains toward your backyard, you're adding water to an already saturated situation. French drains alone might not be enough. You need to manage the sources. The Problem With Surface Discharge Most downspouts in Plymouth end with a splash block or a short extension that dumps water a few feet from the foundation. That's technically moving water away from the house, but not far enough.