Downspout Drainage
Coordinated by the same referral network across Shreveport, Bossier City, and Northwest Louisiana.
Northwest Louisiana · Caddo & Bossier Parish
Catch basin and trench-channel drain installation across Shreveport and Bossier City. NDS, Zurn, and Polylok systems for yards, driveways, patios, and pool decks. Sized for NW Louisiana rainfall.
A catch basin is a below-grade box that catches surface water at a specific low point and pipes it away. A channel or trench drain is the linear cousin — a slotted grate on a concrete channel that runs across a driveway or a patio to intercept sheet flow. Both belong in the toolkit when the problem is defined runoff at a defined point.
A properly sized catch basin belongs at the low point of a yard swale, at the bottom of a downspout run where it meets a landscape bed, at a low corner where two grades meet, or at any spot where water reliably pools. The basin traps sediment and debris in the sump below the outlet, and the pipe carries clean water out. In Shreveport we typically spec 12-inch or 18-inch NDS or Polylok basins for residential; commercial and parking-lot work steps up to 24-inch or 30-inch concrete or heavy-duty polymer boxes.
The grate rating (Pedestrian, Class A, Class B, Class C) determines what can drive over it. In a residential yard, a Class A cast-iron or heavy plastic grate is standard. In a driveway or a parking area you need Class B or C — a light plastic grate will crack under a truck tire on day one. Grate design also affects flow rate: a slotted grate flows more than a decorative grate, and both flow more than a screen. The right pick balances hydraulic capacity against clogging risk from oak leaves and pine straw, which is a real issue in most Shreveport neighborhoods.
A channel drain is a pre-cast concrete or heavy polymer channel with a slotted grate on top, embedded flush with a hard surface. The classic Shreveport use case is the top of a driveway that slopes down toward a garage door — the channel intercepts driveway sheet flow before it reaches the garage slab. Pool decks, patios that drain to the house, and commercial dock ramps are the other common installations. A channel drain is not a substitute for a French drain — it only catches what runs across the surface, not what's saturating the ground below.
Design storm for most residential catch basins in NW Louisiana is a 10-year 1-hour event, which is roughly 3 inches of rain in that hour. A 12-inch NDS basin with a 4-inch outlet handles about 40 gpm at head — enough for a small yard low spot. Larger drainage areas need 18-24 inch basins or multiple basins in series. Under-sized catch basins are the number-one failure we get called to correct. If you can't figure out capacity, over-size — the incremental cost is small.
Every basin outlet needs a solid pipe (not perforated) sloped downhill to a legal discharge — daylight, dry well, or storm tie-in. Minimum slope is 1%, 2% is better. The pipe size steps up with each additional basin added to the run: a single basin can go on 4-inch SDR-35, a chain of 3-4 basins wants 6-inch. Clean-outs at the head of the run make future maintenance trivial.
Every catch basin fills with sediment and leaves. Twice a year — spring and fall, aligned with pine straw and oak-leaf drop — pop the grate and scoop out the sump. It takes 2 minutes per basin and prevents the outlet pipe from silting up. A basin without a sediment sump is a basin that clogs its outlet pipe within a year in a Shreveport yard.
Parking lots and light commercial sites use heavier-gauge concrete basins with H-20 or H-25 rated grates (highway loading). Design usually needs a licensed engineer's stamp — LDEQ stormwater program rules require post-construction runoff controls on lots over the disturbance threshold. See our commercial drainage page.
A single 12-inch residential basin with a short outlet pipe and daylight discharge: $450-$900 installed. A chain of 3 basins with 60 feet of solid pipe to a dry well: $2,200-$3,800. Commercial installations are quoted per site.
Yes, and it's often the right move. A yard-drain catch basin can accept downspout discharge, roof runoff, and surface sheet flow into a single outlet pipe — much cleaner than a bunch of individual buried discharge lines.
A French drain collects saturation water below the surface across a whole area. A catch basin collects surface water at one specific point. They solve different problems and are often used together on the same yard.
Residential: usually no. Commercial: yes, often with an engineer's stamp — City of Shreveport engineering and LDEQ stormwater program both apply above certain site-disturbance thresholds.
Coordinated by the same referral network across Shreveport, Bossier City, and Northwest Louisiana.
Coordinated by the same referral network across Shreveport, Bossier City, and Northwest Louisiana.
Coordinated by the same referral network across Shreveport, Bossier City, and Northwest Louisiana.
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