Drainage Solutions & French Drains in Shreveport
On expansive red clay, water is the puppet master. Where it pools, soil swells; where it drains away, soil shrinks and the slab above loses support. Managing water around your foundation is the cheapest structural repair you’ll ever buy — and the one most often skipped.
Why Water Destroys Shreveport Foundations
Remember what clay does: it swells when wet and shrinks when dry. A foundation doesn’t need to be “weak” to fail on this soil — it just needs the moisture around it to be uneven. Watch what happens on a typical Broadmoor or Bossier City lot: downspouts dump roof runoff in the same two corners for years, AC condensate lines dribble against one wall, and the side of the house with the patio slopes gently toward the slab. That side of the foundation sits in perpetually wetter soil. It heaves — or the plumbing under it corrodes and leaks — while the dry side settles. The slab twists, and the stair-step brick crack appears exactly where the water was pooling.
The wet-dry swings matter too. After a soggy Gulf-season stretch, a fast August dry-down can pull inches of moisture out of the clay in weeks; the ground opens gaps at slab edges and footings drop into them. Keep moisture even around the house and you remove half the engine driving that movement.
What We Install
French Drains
A perforated pipe in a gravel trench that intercepts groundwater and carries it away before it reaches the foundation. Two flavors, and we’ll tell you which fits your lot: surface French drains (shallow, catching sheet flow from patios and downspout dumps) and collector French drains (deeper, intercepting the water table migrating toward the slab). Discharge is always to daylight or a city storm tie-in — never just “somewhere else in your yard.”
Surface Regrading and Swales
Sometimes the fix is nothing more exotic than dirt: reshaping the grade so the ground falls away from the slab at the code minimum (6 inches of drop in the first 10 feet where lot lines allow), building shallow swales to redirect runoff, and cutting berm edges that currently act like bathtubs around your house.
Downspout and Roof Runoff Management
Extensions, buried drain lines to daylight, or dry wells sized for the kind of downpours Northwest Louisiana actually gets. A single 1,500-square-foot roof sheds nearly a thousand gallons in a heavy storm — that’s a swimming pool’s worth of water, and right now it’s landing wherever your downspouts end.
Crawl Space Water Control
For pier-and-beam homes: interior footing drains where water enters, vapor barriers over bare soil, and ventilation corrections. Details on the crawl space page.
Drainage vs. Piers: Which Comes First?
The honest answer, in order:
- Active settlement → stabilize with piers first, then fix drainage so the repair stays put. Pier warranties assume reasonable water management; ignoring drainage can void anyone’s warranty.
- No structural movement, but pooling water → drainage alone, before movement ever starts. This is the best money spent in this whole industry.
- Both → sequence stabilization, then drainage, then cosmetic repair. Skipping the middle step is how people end up repairing cracks twice.
Drainage Pricing in Shreveport
| Work Type | Typical Range | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Downspout extensions / burial | $300–$1,200 | Per line; to daylight |
| Surface French drain | $25–$35 per linear foot | Shallow collection, gravel trench |
| Collector / footer drain | $40–$60 per linear foot | Deeper, sump discharge where needed |
| Regrading & swales | $800–$2,500 | Per problem area; sod restoration |
Red Flags You Can Check in Five Minutes
- Downspouts ending within a few feet of the slab — extend them
- Garden beds built up above the weep line against brick veneer
- Patio or driveway sloping toward the house
- Standing water against the foundation 24 hours after rain
- AC condensate or sump discharge pooling on one side of the house