Yard Grading

Yard grading is essentially leveling the surface on the grounds where your home sits. 

To do this, you might need to shift soil from high lying areas to help push lower grounds to a mid-level. 

Land can also be graded flat or sloped, depending on what you are trying to achieve.  

Yard resloping is what you do when you need to alter the slope of the land your property sits on. 

Benefits of Regrading Your Land

Grading your yard comes with several benefits. Here are the main ones:

1. Protects Your Home

If your property has drainage issues, grading your land is one way to alleviate the problem. Stagnant water or a slope that leads water towards your home can be destructive. 

This is because the water can get into your home's foundation, destroying its structural integrity. This can be dangerous to the dwellers of your home and can be very expensive to fix. It also drives down your property's value. 

Water seeping into your home can also cause mold and mildew. Aside from being unsightly, these are known to create respiratory issues and exacerbate existing allergies. 

Grading or resloping enables you to identify the water flow and grade your grounds in a way where water is led away from your house and into a proper outlet. 

2. Provide Drainage

Yard grading is also a way to avert flooding. Flooding can damage your yard, lawn, and garden by creating pools of stagnant water. 

On grass, this leads to water pools that can be breeding grounds for pests and insects. For your garden, stagnant waters hamper oxygen from reaching your plant's roots, which can cause root rot. 

Again, grading and sloping will enable you to direct water from where it could create damage.

3. Minimizes Erosion

When grading is done, the soil is also compacted, not just leveled. Loose soils tend to erode following heavy rains. 

When compacted, however, soil tends to stay put. Eroded soil will often be deposited at a low-lying area of your property, which is unsightly. If you have plants in the said area, they can also get damaged. 

4. It supports Good Landscaping

The other benefit of yard grading is that it provides a canvas for all your landscaping. 

Even with the best intentions, uneven grounds cannot lead to the well-manicured lawns homeowners envy. 

Whatever you have planned for your yards, be it plants, lighting, water features, or paving, it will always look better when done on properly graded grounds. 

Alternatives to Lawn Grading

As beneficial as lawn grading is, sometimes it's just not possible. 

This is especially the case in properties that have utility lines running underneath. In such instances, grading can interfere or damage these. 

Fortunately, you can still consider other options. 

• French drains

A French drain is a trench filled with gravel and perforated piping. French drains trap water runoff and naturally drain it from your yard. You do not need to dig too deep to install these drains. Underground utility lines, therefore, remain protected. 

They do not require any specialized equipment either. This drives down the cost of installation. 

• Terraced Backyard

Terraces give you multiple, layered areas to do your gardening without worrying about then being washed away. 

If your property sits on a steep slope, this is an excellent option. 

Final Word

While yard grading had numerous benefits, you need to give it some thought. Before the grading, you needed to determine what your actual needs and problem areas are. If you have any questions, please contact us and we can show you similar work, whether it is grading or landscaping in Mount Prospect and the surrounding suburbs.

With this in mind, you will be able to not only carry out the grading but also find the best method of going about it.