Site drainage is the dirt work that decides where storm water goes on your land. Standing water on a pad or a washed-out ranch road means the water has no planned path. Bankston's Builders cuts the ditches and swales and sets the culverts and crossings that carry it away. We also build the stock tanks, ponds, dams and detention basins that hold it.
We work as the drainage contractor on commercial sites, data center campuses, oilfield locations and ranches. Drainage often goes in with land grading on a pad, since the grade decides which way water runs. Site drainage is one part of our dirt work in Fort Worth and on ranch land farther west. Call or text (214) 557-5106 to talk through your site.
Tell us about the land or the building project and where it is. We look at the job and put the quote in writing.
Every site drainage job starts with two questions: where the water comes from, and where it can go. On a pad, a swale or ditch carries runoff away from the building area at a steady fall.
Where a road crosses a draw, a culvert lets storm water pass under the road base. A culvert too small for the flow sends water over the top and cuts the road away. On a wide, shallow draw, a low-water crossing lets the flow run across the road instead. Culverts on a new ranch or lease road go in with the road building work.
On development projects in Fort Worth, the city's stormwater review sets the design rules. Any ditch or culvert carrying more than 10 cubic feet per second needs a hydraulic model. The project's civil engineer runs that model, and we cut the ditch to the grades it sets.
A stock tank is the Texas word for a farm pond. The USDA's pond handbook describes two kinds. An embankment pond holds water behind a dam built across a draw. An excavated pond is dug out of nearly level ground and holds a smaller supply.
The handbook rates clay and silty clay as excellent pond soils, and sandy clay as usually satisfactory. The drainage area above the tank has to be big enough to keep water in it through a drought. Too big, and storms call for costly overflow structures.
The site is cleared, and the topsoil is set aside for later. A core trench under the dam is filled with clay in thin layers, each compacted before the next. A spillway passes storm runoff around the dam before the water can top it. The handbook warns that a dam with too small a spillway will probably be destroyed in its first severe storm.
Roofs and paving shed more water than open ground, and the city says that raises flooding risk. In Fort Worth, disturbing 1 acre or more calls for an approved grading permit and a stormwater drainage study. If downstream pipes and channels cannot carry the new flows, the developer can improve them or detain the water.
A detention basin holds that water and releases it through an outlet at pre-developed levels. We cut the basin and shape the swales that feed it to the engineer's grades. When a Fort Worth plan proposes detention, the city requires a storm water facilities maintenance agreement. This work often runs alongside site preparation for the building pads.
Erosion control is part of the rules on bigger sites. The TCEQ construction stormwater permit covers work that disturbs an acre or more of soil and drains to surface water. It calls for a stormwater pollution prevention plan before construction starts. The USDA handbook says grass planted soon after construction can protect disturbed ground from erosion.
Call or text for a written quote. We work about 300 miles around Fort Worth across DFW, West Texas and the Hill Country.
(214) 557-5106From the first call or text to the finished work, here is how it goes.
Call or text (214) 557-5106, or send the form. Tell us what the project is, where the land or the building sits and when you need it done.
We go over the tract or the space, the plans and the access for heavy equipment. On dirt work we also look at the ground and where the water runs.
The scope and the price go in writing before any work starts. The quote spells out what gets cleared, cut, built or finished.
Machines and crews come in on the set date. On a dirt job the work runs in order: clearing, the pad or the road, the trenches, then the drainage. On a build, the trades follow the schedule.
The ground is left graded and compacted to the plan, ready for concrete, a building or a rig. On a finish out or a custom home, the work runs through to the finished space.
Common questions about site drainage around Fort Worth and the rest of our Texas service area. If yours is not here, call or text and ask.
We build caliche pad sites and lease roads for oil and gas operators in West Texas and the Permian Basin. Grading and drainage around the location are part of the job, done by crews with real expertise on heavy equipment.
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Site work for data center campuses: clearing, mass grading, building pads, access roads, conduit trenches and drainage. We build the ground the data halls stand on, to the plans and the geotechnical report.
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We pour concrete slabs and pads on the sites we prepare ourselves. Inside commercial finish outs, we polish the concrete floor.
Learn MoreExcavators, dozers, compactors and skid steers do the work, run by crews with real expertise on each machine. The jobs are sized to match: multi-acre clearing, commercial pads, long roads and oilfield locations.
The pad, the concrete and the building can all run through the same company. A custom home starts on a pad we cut and compacted. A commercial project can go from raw land to a finished tenant space.
Developers, oil and gas operators, data center builders and ranch owners all bring us ground to move. Each site gets its own scope, whether that is a detention pond, a lease road or a campus pad.
Tell us about the land or the building and where it sits. We look at the job, then put the scope and the price in writing before any work starts.
Tell us about the land, the pad, the road or the building and where it sits. Call or text (214) 557-5106, or send the form and we will get back to you with the next step.
Tell us about the land or the building project and where it is. We look at the job and put the quote in writing.
