Wet yards, flooded basements, icy driveways — it’s all the same problem: water with nowhere to go. We give Gilmanton water a better path with grading, drains, and culverts that actually work.
A lot of Gilmanton land is a generation into growing back, and reclamation is its own kind of excavation: mowing and grubbing juniper and pin cherry out of old pasture, pulling stumps, removing the rock that every New Hampshire field produces, and grading it back to something you can hay or fence. The town’s network of dirt roads is part of the deal here — beautiful ten months a year, posted and impassable for loaded trucks in mud season, so material hauling gets planned for late summer and fall. Long driveways are the norm; a 600-foot farm drive with proper ditching is a routine Gilmanton quote. Around Crystal Lake the standard shoreland rules apply within 250 feet, but most of our Gilmanton work is upland: woodlot house sites where the questions are hardpan, springs that surface in April, and where to push the stump pile.
Reclaiming a Gilmanton field? Don’t just brush-hog it and call it done — grub the roots out. Mowed juniper and gray birch come right back in two seasons; grubbed and graded ground stays open. And keep the stones: a picked-rock pile is free material for the base of your next farm road.
Most wet-basement and swampy-yard problems are solved outside, with dirt. We regrade so the ground pitches away from the foundation, install French and curtain drains that intercept groundwater before it reaches the house, day-light downspouts and footing drains so roof water leaves, and set culverts and swales that carry storm flow through the property instead of across your lawn.
On lake lots this doubles as shoreline stewardship — controlled infiltration instead of erosion channels cutting to the water. Perforated pipe in clean stone, wrapped, pitched, and day-lighted: boring details, dry basement.
French/curtain drain installs typically run $2,000–$8,000 depending on length and depth; regrading and downspout day-lighting often less. We find where the water comes from before quoting, and the quote is flat.
Often, yes — if the water is coming from surface or shallow groundwater on the uphill side, a curtain drain that intercepts it plus regrading at the foundation solves it outside. If the water table itself is high, interior systems may be part of the answer; we'll tell you which problem you actually have.
Snowmelt plus flat or bowl-shaped grading plus our hardpan soils equals standing water. The cure is a path: swales or drains that give melt somewhere to go. Most wet yards are fixed with a day or two of grading and pipe.
Work within the protected shoreland (250 feet of a lake) or touching wetlands can require NHDES permits. We flag it on the site walk and plan the job so it's done right and documented.
Free site walks, test pits before quotes, flat pricing, and a crew that knows Lakes Region ground.
Tell us where the property is and what you’re trying to do. We’ll walk the site, talk it through, and give you a straight, flat quote.
