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Catch basins, tightlines, culverts, and outfall piping — storm drainage systems designed around where the water is actually allowed to go.
A French drain collects water from the soil. A storm drainage system does something bigger: it catches surface water from rooftops, paved areas, and bare ground, moves it through pipe, and delivers it somewhere it is legally allowed to go. The components look different depending on the job — catch basins set flush in pavement, area drains in low corners of a yard, downspout tightlines that run roof water underground rather than letting it sheet across the surface, culverts under driveways, and the main line that ties all of it together — but every one of those components has the same job: collect and convey.
We do all of it. We trench and install catch basins, run tightlines from downspout boots to an outfall, set culverts under new and existing drives, and tie individual collection points into a single pipe that carries the water away. What we also do, before any of that, is work out where the water can go. That part is not glamorous, but it decides everything else about the job.
This page is specifically about storm drainage at the whole-system level — the piping, the collection hardware, and the outfall question. Our French drain page covers subsurface drainage and perimeter systems around foundations. If you are not sure which you need, describe the problem and we will sort it out on the site visit.
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The clearest sign that you need a storm drainage system rather than a simpler fix is that water is arriving from somewhere and you cannot stop it at the source. A low spot that fills because your own gutters overflow is a downspout problem. A low spot that fills because it sits at the bottom of a slope, a driveway, or a large paved area is a drainage problem, and adding more mulch or regrading a few feet of yard will not fix it.
Other calls we get: a new garage or shop slab that has no planned outlet for the floor drain; a gravel driveway that has turned into a creek bed every winter because the original grader never put a culvert in the right place; a downspout that was left to daylight at grade and has been undermining the foundation footing for years. The water is telling you something in all of those situations. A well-designed system gives it a path that does not go through a wall or a floor.
Rain in this region falls through fall, winter, and spring, and generally stops around mid-June. A drainage problem that seems minor in August will often announce itself loudly by November. The better time to install the pipe is before the first heavy rain of the season, when the ground is still workable and there is time to backfill and seed before it turns.
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Before we touch a shovel, we establish two things: where the water comes from, and where it can legally go. The first is straightforward — walk the property in the rain, or look at the grade and the impervious surfaces and work it out. The second is the part that trips people up, and it is the part we want to talk about directly.
Water only moves downhill. The outfall — the point where the collected water leaves your system and exits your property — has to be at a lower elevation than everything upstream of it, and it has to discharge to a place that has legal authority to receive it. That usually means a roadside ditch maintained by the jurisdiction, a storm main in the street if one exists, or in some cases a designated drainage easement. What it cannot mean is piping your water onto the neighbor's ground or into a ditch you do not control. Even if the elevation works, the neighbor's permission is not a permanent solution and a ditch you do not own can be blocked without notice.
We walk the outfall path before we design anything. If there is a roadside ditch at the street and the property falls toward it, that is often a clean answer. If the lot is flat or the closest ditch is uphill, we have a different conversation — one that may end with retention or infiltration on your own ground rather than conveyance off it. That is not a failure of the design; it is what the topography allows, and we would rather tell you that clearly up front than install pipe that has no legal place to drain.
Once the outfall is confirmed, the system is laid out from the low end up: we set the exit elevation, work back upstream through the collection points, and make sure every section of pipe has enough fall to move the design flow without silting up. Catch basins are set at low corners. Tightlines are run from each downspout to the main. Cleanouts are placed where the pipe bends or transitions size, because a system that cannot be cleaned will eventually block. We backfill in compacted lifts over native or imported bedding depending on what the pipe requires, and we restore the surface.
Before any trench opens, we comply with RCW 19.122.030: the excavation boundary is white-lined and notice is given not less than two and not more than ten full business days before work begins. We give that notice ourselves and we do not start inside the waiting period.
The right approach to storm drainage systems depends on what we find. More on how we work.
Clark County covers a lot of elevation, and the elevation tells you a great deal about how difficult the outfall question is going to be. At the low end, Salmon Creek sits at 49 feet and La Center at 52 feet. On ground that flat, there is almost no natural fall to work with. Getting water to move from a yard to a ditch often means engineering grade into the pipe run with precision, and even then the outfall ditch itself may be close to the same elevation as the collection point. On land that low, the honest answer sometimes becomes on-site retention or infiltration: the water stays on your ground, slows down, and soaks in, rather than being routed off the property entirely.
On the higher ground things work differently. Camas sits at 712 feet and Yacolt at 709 feet; on sloped terrain like that, water is already moving when you arrive. The question is not how to make it move, but where to intercept it before it causes damage and how to get it to an outfall that can handle the volume without eroding. Interceptor drains across a slope and culverts sized for the catchment area matter more than they do on flat ground.
In the middle of the elevation range — Vancouver at 180 feet, Orchards at 272, Battle Ground at 285 — you get a mix: enough fall to move water but enough development pressure that the drainage easements and street mains are worth checking before assuming a ditch connection is available and legal.
On the permit side: within the incorporated cities — Vancouver, Camas, Washougal, Battle Ground, Ridgefield, La Center, and the town of Yacolt — the city issues its own permits. Unincorporated Clark County addresses go through the county. Either way, the local jurisdiction sets the rules about where stormwater can discharge, what size of system requires a permit, and whether an engineered plan is required. We do not invent those rules; we confirm them with the relevant office before we start design work, because they change and they vary by location.
From the river flats to the foothills, storm drainage systems changes: our service areas.
Most residential storm drainage work in Clark County falls in the same range as other excavation: $1,500 to $6,500 for a typical system. What pulls a job toward the high end of that range or beyond it is not the pipe — it is the complexity of the outfall solution and the length of trench required to reach it.
A straightforward tightline from four downspouts to a roadside ditch 40 feet from the house is a different job from running 200 feet of pipe across a lot to reach an outfall that required a permit and a connection fee from the jurisdiction. Both are real jobs; they are not the same price.
Catch basins, cleanouts, and the hardware to connect into a street main or ditch add material cost that varies by what exists at the outfall. We carry that out when we walk the property, so the estimate you get from us already accounts for it. What we will not do is quote you a low number to win the job and hand you a change order when the outfall turns out to be harder than assumed.
On-site retention — a dry well, an infiltration trench, or a basin — can sometimes replace a long outfall run and save money. Where the soil accepts water and the jurisdiction allows it, that is worth pricing as an alternative. We will tell you when it is an option.
Full cost breakdowns, storm drainage systems included, live on the Vancouver Excavation Co. homepage.
A French drain manages subsurface water — it pulls water out of saturated soil around a foundation or in a low spot. A storm drainage system manages surface water and roof runoff — catch basins, downspout tightlines, and pipe that carries collected water to a discharge point. Many properties need both. If you are not sure which problem you have, describe what you are seeing and we will diagnose it on the site visit.
It depends on what the ditch is, who maintains it, and what the local jurisdiction allows. A roadside ditch maintained by the city or county can often receive a legal tightline connection, but there is typically a process to confirm it and sometimes a permit or connection fee involved. You cannot pipe water onto a neighbor's ground or into a ditch you do not own or have an easement to use. We confirm the outfall situation before we design anything — that question decides the whole system.
On flat ground with no fall to a legal outfall, the realistic options shift to on-site management: infiltration trenches, dry wells, or retention areas that hold water and let it soak in slowly. Whether that works depends on the soil — ground that already saturates and stays wet is unlikely to absorb more. We look at the topography and the outfall options together and tell you honestly what is available rather than selling you a system that has nowhere to drain.
It depends on the scope and location. Some connections to public systems require permits from the city or county; some private on-site systems do not. The rules are set by the local jurisdiction and confirmed before we start — incorporated cities issue their own permits, unincorporated Clark County addresses go through the county. We do not guess; we check.
Washington's RCW 19.122.030 requires the excavation boundary to be white-lined and notice given not less than two and not more than ten full business days before the work-to-begin date. We give that notice ourselves on every job. A general contractor may give it legally, but the excavator retains responsibility, so we do not rely on someone else's call.
Tell us the address, describe where the water is going now, and we will walk the property, find the low point, and check the outfall options before we put a number on paper.
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