INSTALLATION: Delivering Drainage

About 25 percent of Richard Poynter’s customers come to him with drainage issues – after having already paid someone else to “fix” the problem.
 
Poynter, owner of Poynter Landscape, Ballwin, Mo., says about 10 percent of new home construction is susceptible to drainage issues. It’s not uncommon to have as many as 10 lots drain into a single sewer outlet, he says. As a result, someone will have drainage problems.
 
Poynter attributes this to the “quick in-and-out mentality” of today’s home builders who build homes fast and move on to the next project. Whatever the cause of drainage problems, fixing them can be a highly profitable addition to a landscape contractor’s service mix.
 
Solving drainage issues isn’t just about moving soil around. It involves precision measurements, a steep learning curve and an understanding of math to ensure the problem is solved correctly.

WHAT’S INVOLVED. Fixing a drainage problem is based on getting the correct percentage of grading by using instruments such as a laser level. The tool, which can be bought for less than $1,000, is essential for precise measurements on topography which might vary only by a degree.
 
This instrument and the training to use it are the difference between a professional and an amateur. Is a contractor “eyeballing” a grading and guessing at its steepness or is he using the laser level to make an exact assessment? The answer typically determines whether a drainage issue is solved and the contractor receives more work in the future. “They might be right 65 or 75 percent of the time, but a 25 percent failure rate in this part of the industry is pretty bad,” Poynter says. “The naked eye will fool even a professional who’s been doing this for years. I don’t trust my eyes and I’ve been doing it for 40 years.”
 
Educating customers on what drainage work can and cannot solve is an integral part of the job. To manage expectations, Poynter’s company clearly defines what standing water is. “To one customer, it’s an hour after a rainfall and there’s still standing water,” he says. “We define standing water as a situation where you have water on the ground 24 hours after the end of a rain.” The definition of standing water is printed in the company’s proposal and explained to the customer so there are no surprises.
 
Homeowners need to understand that solving drainage problems doesn’t equate to basement waterproofing, Poynter says. Many customers believe curing standing water problems will fix a leaky basement. “Exterior surface water, when drained properly, can have a positive impact on basement water,” he says. “We can control what’s on top, but in most cases, if someone has a leaky basement, there are likely a number of factors at play.”

SELLING THE SERVICE. It is a challenge to sell a customer on the fees necessary to perform a typography study. “A customer might have several people coming out to their property, giving them estimates on what it would take to fix it, but no one’s doing the typography to reduce it to a mathematical equation,” Poynter says. Depending on the size of the property, it may cost $300 to $1,000 for a typography review.
 
Customers may have a difficult time digesting those fees, especially when they haven’t seen any soil moved. “We reinforce the idea to our customers that they’re paying for our expertise and our ability to do the calculations and reduce it to a mathematical equation and come up with a solution we can tell them before we start that it will work,” he says.
 
For a homeowner with a chronic standing water problem, Poynter says selling he job isn’t tough. “When you have someone with a real drainage problem and they hear that we’ve reduced it down to a science, they’re relieved,” he says.
 
Drainage services are akin to plumbing problems: Customers won’t call when there is nothing wrong. Because of this, it’s natural to expect a flurry of calls during heavy rains. In the Midwest where Poynter Landscape is located, wet periods lasting several days or weeks aren’t uncommon. “The Midwest can go through heavy wet periods at any time of the year,” he says. “Anytime you have those, you get a spike in people calling for standing water-related problems. It’s based on when the problem pops up.”

STARTING THE SERVICE. Crew training and education is the greatest expense associated with adding drainage to a service menu. Most landscape contractors already own the equipment to perform drainage services, but a laser level is an added expense. While it may cost less than $1,000, crews must learn to do math calculations and operate the laser device.
 
When he added drainage services in 1992, Poynter got his crews acquainted by designing educational problems. Many were proficient with putting plants in the ground, but few had ever dealt with topography plans.
 
The time and effort needed for an upstart drainage service program pays off when new recruits receive on-the-job training by employees. Most of Poynter’s crews are able to perform drainage services, as many of the skills are required in other tasks, such as installing a swimming pool.
 
As far as profitability, Poynter strives to have drainage match the profit of all other services his company offers. “We strive to have everything we do fit into the same profit margin,” he says. “We have a bar that we’d like to meet for any job we do.”
 
Poynter says drainage isn’t necessarily a “growth” service, but landscape contractors can benefit by adding it to their offerings. “A lot of this industry is growing, but I don’t see this in that way,” he says. “It’s like a cavity in your tooth. You’re not going to do anything about it until it hurts.”