A patio is a big, flat, waterproof surface attached to your house. Every drop of rain that lands on it goes somewhere — and if that somewhere is your foundation, the patio you built to enjoy becomes the water problem you pay to fix. Here's how we plan it so that never happens.
The one rule: fall away from the house
Concrete flatwork needs slope to shed water, and on a patio the direction is not negotiable: away from the structure. The standard is roughly a quarter inch of fall per foot. On a twelve-foot-deep patio, that's about three inches of drop from the house edge to the yard edge — enough to move water briskly, little enough that furniture sits level and nobody notices underfoot.
That number is easy to say and easy to get wrong. It has to be set in the grade and the forms before the pour, checked during screeding, and preserved through finishing. A patio that "mostly" slopes away but holds a birdbath-sized low spot against the house fails the only test that matters.
Where the water goes after it leaves the slab
Shedding water off the patio is half the plan; receiving it is the other half. On East Tennessee red clay — which drains slowly and swells when soaked — water dumped at the patio's edge doesn't disappear, it lingers. Depending on the lot, we plan for it with:
- Graded yard fall carrying water on toward a natural low, when the lot allows it
- Gravel edge drains or a French drain along the downhill edge when the yard is flat or the clay is stubborn
- Downspout routing so the roof's water isn't dumped onto the patio to begin with — a surprisingly common mistake
Special cases worth flagging
Walk-out basements and crawl spaces raise the stakes: water held against the wall finds its way in. Covered patios still need full slope — blown rain and roof splash land on them. Patios cut into a slope need the uphill side handled too, usually with a swale or drain intercepting water before it crosses the slab.
What this looks like in our proposals
Drainage isn't a footnote on our patio jobs; it's line items. The written proposal spells out the grading, the slope, any drains, and where the water ends up. The written proposal defines the scope and the price, and no change proceeds without your written approval.
It's also the first thing we look at during the estimate. Before we talk finishes or dimensions, we walk the spot after-the-rain style: where does water come from, where does it sit, where can it go. Ten minutes of that saves a decade of trouble.
Get your patio planned right
If you're planning a patio anywhere in the Tri-Cities, request a free on-site estimate. Devin or Davy will walk the site, read the water, and give you a written, itemized proposal that treats drainage as seriously as the finish.