Per-foot pricing works for a straight run through open lawn and stops working for everything else. What moves the number is whether the ground takes water at all, and whether there is a legal, downhill place to send it. Both are properties of the site, not of the length.

How much of the ground here sheds rather than drains

81% of the mapped soil in Syracuse sheds water rather than taking it in, and up to 100% of it is rated as susceptible to ponding. On ground like that the destination is the price, not the length. A run cannot end in a soakaway, because the soakaway is sitting in the same soil that would not absorb the water in the first place, so the quote has to carry the water to a real outfall. A per-foot rate that does not say where the last foot goes is not a quote you can compare.

The reasoning behind that

Yard drainage is priced per foot when the work is uniform: same depth, same soil, same surface, one outfall. Real yards are rarely uniform. A run that crosses a driveway, passes a mature tree, or changes depth to keep fall is three different rates in one length.

The bigger variable is the destination. Water has to arrive somewhere. On a sloping lot that somewhere is often free. On a flat lot it is a dry well sized to hold a storm, and the sizing is set by how fast the surrounding ground can absorb what is put into it.

A quote worth comparing states the depth, the pipe, the stone, the fabric and the outfall separately. Two per-foot numbers from two firms are not comparable unless those five match.

More on this: Yard and Lawn Drainage in Syracuse, UT.

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