Yard Drainage Diagnostic Worksheet, Backyard Water Problem Checklist (PDF Download)

Your yard holds water. You are about to call somebody about it.

Do this first - it takes ten minutes and it costs nothing.

Water only tells the truth while it is moving. Once the rain stops the evidence is gone, and whoever you hire is reconstructing what happened from a puddle stain and a hunch. That guesswork gets priced into your quote.

This guide is the shot list.

WHAT'S INSIDE (6 pages, PDF, US Letter, prints at home)

- Six shots, in diagnostic order, that document the whole problem
- When to film, and the second visit almost nobody makes
- How to film so the footage is actually usable
- What NOT to bother with, and why drone footage is not the answer
- Read your own footage: four things to look for and what each one usually means
- What to do with the clips, and how contractors respond to them
- Where your water is legally allowed to go, including the NC case law most homeowners have never heard of
- Before anyone digs: 811, and the photo habit that protects you

WHY THIS EXISTS

I run a licensed landscaping, drainage and hardscaping company in Waxhaw, Union County. I get called to yards that hold water, almost always on a dry day, because that is when people schedule things.

A contractor who cannot see where the water came from quotes for the worst case. That is the responsible thing to do when you do not know. It is also expensive for you.

Thirty seconds of video during rain removes the guessing. It shows the entry point, the path, the volume, and the place it stops. No amount of dry-day inspection produces that.

WHO IT IS FOR

Anyone whose yard holds water after it rains, who is about to get quotes, and who would like those quotes to be comparable to each other and based on the same evidence.

Written for North Carolina Piedmont conditions, but the shot list works anywhere.

WHAT THIS IS NOT

An educational guide describing a documentation method. Not a design, not an engineered or stamped plan, not a boundary survey, not utility locating, and not a site-specific recommendation for your property. Nobody can assess your yard from a document, which is rather the point of filming it.

I am a licensed contractor, not a professional engineer or registered landscape architect. Where a project needs one, this guide says so.

REFUNDS

If it is not right for your site, message me within 30 days and I will refund it. No form, no explanation needed.

INSTANT DOWNLOAD - no physical item ships.