Yard Regrading & Grading in Delaware County, PA

Regrading, reshaping the slope of your yard, is the most direct fix for surface water. If rain sheets toward your foundation, or a low area turns into a pond after every storm, the ground itself is sending water the wrong way. Regrading sends it back.

How regrading works

The goal is simple: the ground should fall away from your house and toward a place water can safely go. A regrade adds, removes, and re-shapes soil to create that consistent slope, a bit steeper right next to the foundation, then easing out across the yard. Done well it's invisible; the yard just looks like a yard, and the water quietly leaves. Often it's paired with a swale, a shallow, planted channel, to guide water along a deliberate path instead of wherever gravity last left it.

When regrading is the right fix, and when it's not

It's the right call for:

• water pooling against the foundation;
• a low spot that collects surface water every storm;
• ground that visibly slopes toward the house;
• a patio or addition that changed how water runs.

It's not enough on its own when:

• the water is subsurface (springs, a high water table), which needs a French drain;
• there's no room to establish slope (tight side yards between houses), so a drain may be the only option;
• the source is roof runoff, so start with downspouts.

Regrading moves surface water. It can't fix water that's already underground. That's a drain's job.

Regrading, Delco's slopes, and clay

Two things make grading matter more in Delaware County. First, the rolling terrain: on a sloped Delco lot, even a small reverse-grade near the house gathers a lot of water, and a good regrade has to work with the larger slope, not against it. Second, the clay: because water doesn't soak in, getting the surface slope right is often the whole difference between a dry yard and a wet one; there's no forgiving sandy soil to absorb a grading mistake. On older lots, decades of settling are a common culprit; ground that drained fine in the 1980s may now tilt the wrong way.

What regrading costs

Cost tracks the area being reshaped and how much soil has to move. A small fix at one corner of the house is modest; re-sloping a whole back yard, trucking in fill, and re-establishing the lawn is a bigger project.

Regrading across Delaware County

We regrade yards throughout Delco, including Media, Drexel Hill, Springfield, Havertown, Broomall, Newtown Square, Aston, Ridley, Glen Mills. See all service areas →

Keep reading

• Standing water in Delaware County: the full guide
• French Drains, best for a chronically soggy strip or wet line.
• Downspouts & Dry Wells, best for roof runoff with nowhere to go.