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Owning and operating a successful business is an amazingly rewarding experience. However, to stay in business long-term, you need to continuously grow your client base. To do so, you should always strive to provide exceptional customer service to your clientele. You can accomplish this task by training your salespeople well. You should also search for effective ways to advertise your business’s product or service offerings. Some wonderful places to advertise your goods or services include newspapers, magazines, your website, and the social media outlets you engage in. On this blog, I hope you will discover smart tips to help you succeed in business.

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Growing Your Business

How Do You Prevent a Hardscaping Feature From Causing Excess Stormwater Runoff in Your Yard?

by Claude Medina

Hardscaping refers to installing anything man-made in your yard. The term is typically used to refer to installing retaining walls, walkways, and patios, but even driveways and sidewalks can be considered hardscaping features as well. One thing you'll have to keep in mind before beginning any hardscaping project is that there's a high chance it will affect your yard's drainage. Hardscaping features often prevent water from soaking into the soil, which worsens stormwater runoff problems.

Stormwater runoff can cause serious issues, like ponding water in your yard that damages your plants or foundation damage due to it soaking into the soil that surrounds the foundation of your home. Thankfully, there are a few ways that you can stop a hardscaping project from causing drainage problems. To learn more about your options, read on to learn how you can prevent a hardscaping feature from worsening stormwater runoff in your yard.

1. Use Permeable Hardscaping Materials

Selecting permeable materials for hardscaping features minimizes the impact that they'll have on your yard's drainage, which reduces the chance that you'll accidentally create drainage problems. Permeable pavers are a popular choice, as they can be used to create beautiful driveways, walkways, and patios that allow water to drain into the soil rather than creating runoff. Water can drain through the gaps between the permeable pavers.

You also have the option of using permeable concrete, which is more porous than normal concrete — water quickly drains through it into the soil below. When water can soak into the soil underneath the hardscaping feature, it won't create drainage problems in your yard.

2. Slope Your Lawn Away From Hardscaping Features

Manually regrading your land is a simple technique that's very effective at preventing drainage problems. While it's labor-intensive, you can change the slope of your yard by digging up the soil with a shovel and piling it elsewhere. If you create a downwards slope away from the hardscaping feature that you're installing, water will drain quickly away from it. You'll need to direct the slope towards a road (where it will be carried into storm drains), a natural body of water, or a valley where the water can collect without harming the rest of your yard.

3. Install French Drains to Divert Water

French drains are a more complicated solution to prevent drainage issues than regrading your land, but they're less labor-intensive. To create a French drain, you dig a trench in the soil leading to where you want to drain to, then lay permeable pipe at the bottom of the trench. Permeable pipes have tiny holes in them that allow water to enter. After placing the pipe in the trench, you fill the trench with gravel. The gravel allows water to enter the pipe while blocking soil, preventing soil from clogging the holes in the pipe. Afterward, you cover the gravel with a small layer of soil to make the French drain blend in with the rest of your yard.

Water follows the path of least resistance, and there's very little resistance in the permeable pipe located inside a French drain. Any water that soaks into the soil will enter the pipe and drain away from your yard. Surrounding a hardscaping feature with French drains will prevent issues with stormwater runoff since stormwater will quickly enter the French drains and be diverted.

Overall, it's usually best to use permeable materials for any hardscaping project to avoid creating drainage issues in the first place. If you're having trouble finding a good drainage solution, have your hardscaping feature installed by a residential landscaping contractor. They can solve drainage issues as well, so they'll be able to prevent any changes in your landscaping from worsening your yard's drainage. 

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