Most drainage confusion comes from one thing: people shop for a product when they should be diagnosing a problem. A French drain and a catch basin do not compete. They collect different water. Pick the wrong one and you will have spent real money on something that was never going to help.
Here is the short version, then the reasoning.
The four tools, and what each one is actually for
| Tool | What it collects | Use it when |
|---|---|---|
| Catch basin | Surface water, through a grate | Water is visibly running or pooling on top of the ground and you need somewhere for it to enter a pipe. |
| French drain | Subsurface water, through gravel and perforated pipe | The ground itself is saturated and staying soft. Nothing is visibly running, it is just wet. |
| Curtain drain | Subsurface water, intercepted before it arrives | Your house or yard sits below a slope and water is moving toward you underground. |
| Dry well or seepage tank | Nothing. It is a destination, not a collector | You have collected water and there is nowhere for it to go, so it has to soak away instead. |
Read that last row again, because it is where most of the money goes and the least attention.
What each one costs, which follows the same logic
The prices line up with the diagnosis rather than with the size of the yard, and the ladder is worth seeing in one place:
- Regrading and downspout work. The cheapest thing that works, and it should be tried first because it frequently is the fix.
- Catch basin: $6,000 to $8,000 typically, depending on depth and size. Depth is set by where the water has to be carried to, not by preference.
- Seepage pits or dry wells: $15,000 to $25,000 for the tanks alone, depending on size and where they have to go.
Notice the shape of that. The price does not climb because the tool gets fancier. It climbs because your options for getting rid of the water are running out.
The question that actually decides it: where does the water go?
Every drain moves water. None of them removes it. So before you choose a tool, you need to know the outlet, and there are only a few honest answers:
- Daylight at a lower elevation on your own property. The cheapest and the best. The pipe simply comes out of the ground somewhere lower and the water leaves.
- The street, if your town allows it. Often the cheapest answer available, and it is the town's system and their call, so it is a question for the municipal engineer or the DPW rather than an assumption. Elevation can rule it out on its own: if the house sits lower than the road, water will not run there.
- A dry well or seepage tanks. What you build when neither of the above exists. This is the expensive answer. Concrete seepage tanks run $15,000 to $25,000 for the tanks alone depending on size and where they have to go.
What is not an answer: your neighbor's property, a wetland, a stream, or the sanitary sewer. That last one is prohibited outright in New Jersey, and we explain why on the French drain permit page.
This is why a drainage quote cannot be given over the phone. Somebody has to stand on the ground and work out where the water is allowed to go, and that answer sets the price far more than the length of pipe does.
Surface water or subsurface water? Look at your yard
The diagnosis is simpler than people expect.
If you can see water moving or standing on top of the ground, that is surface water. It runs off a roof, a driveway, a patio or a higher lot next door and collects at the low point. A catch basin gives it a way into a pipe. A French drain in that spot will fill with silt and stop working, because it was designed to collect water from the soil, not to swallow a stream carrying leaves and grit.
If the ground is just soft and stays soft for days, with nothing visibly running, that is subsurface water. A catch basin does nothing at all for it, because there is no surface flow to catch. A French drain is the right tool.
If both are happening, you probably need both, and that is normal rather than an upsell. Plenty of properties have a downspout dumping surface water at a corner and saturated ground behind it.
Start with the cheapest thing that works
Before any of these tools, two things fix more wet yards than all of them combined:
Grading. The ground should fall about two inches for every ten feet as you walk away from the house. A lot of properties fail that, either from careless work or from decades of settling erasing the pitch. Restoring it is often the entire fix, and it involves no pipe at all.
Downspouts. Roof water dumped at the corner of a foundation is the single most common cause of a wet basement we see. Carrying that water well away from the house, underground if the run allows it, is cheap and it is frequently enough on its own.
Any contractor who arrives and quotes a French drain before looking at your grade and your gutters has skipped the two steps most likely to solve it.
Common questions
What is the difference between a French drain and a catch basin? They collect different water. A catch basin is a box with a grate that takes surface water, the kind you can see running or pooling on top of the ground, and gives it a way into a pipe. A French drain is a gravel trench with perforated pipe that collects subsurface water out of saturated soil. Putting a French drain where surface water runs will silt it up, and putting a catch basin where the ground is simply soft does nothing, because there is no surface flow to catch.
What is the difference between a French drain and a curtain drain? Construction is much the same. Position is the difference. A curtain drain is placed to intercept water moving toward your house or yard from higher ground, catching it before it arrives rather than collecting it once it is already there. The classic use is a property sitting below a slope with a wet corner after every storm.
Does a French drain need an exit? Yes, always. It moves water rather than removing it. Without an outlet it fills up and stops working, usually in the first heavy rain after installation. The outlet is daylight at a lower elevation, a dry well sized for the volume, or a permitted connection to a storm system.
Can I drain my yard into the street? Sometimes, and it is worth asking first because it is usually the cheapest answer. It is the town's system, so the question goes to the municipal engineer or the DPW. Elevation can also rule it out, because if the house sits lower than the road the water will not run there on its own.
How much does yard drainage cost in NJ? It depends on how far down the ladder your property forces you. Regrading and downspout work is the cheapest and often enough on its own. A catch basin typically runs $6,000 to $8,000 depending on depth and size. Seepage pits or dry wells run $15,000 to $25,000 for the tanks alone. There is no single number, because the job is the outlet rather than the pipe. A couple of downspout leaders daylighting at the street is a different project from a full storm system, and where there is nowhere for water to go, concrete seepage tanks alone run $15,000 to $25,000 depending on size and placement. What the cost turns on is whether the leaders can reach the street, whether the township permits that connection, and whether the house sits above or below the road.
Will regrading alone fix standing water? Often, yes, and it should be tried first because it is the cheapest thing that works. Restoring about two inches of fall per ten feet away from the house solves a surprising share of wet basements and soggy corners without a single pipe going in the ground. Where the lot has nowhere to shed water to on the surface, that is when the tools above come out.
The wider picture on diagnosing a wet property is in wet basement or a yard that never dries, and the service itself is grading and drainage.
Still not sure how this applies to your property? That is what a free on-site estimate is for. Call 862-268-2510 or tell us what is going on, and we will give you a straight answer, including when the answer is that you do not need us.