Town lots and farm-edge acreage on the flat caliche plains northwest of Lubbock — with runoff that can migrate off the surrounding fields. We design for it.
Tell us what your yard is doing and we’ll come take a look — no charge.
Shallowater sits just northwest of Lubbock, a smaller town ringed by farmland on the same flat, caliche plains — and that mix of town lots and edge-of-field acreage shapes its drainage.
Within town, Shallowater yards face the familiar South Plains bind: a caliche subgrade that won’t absorb water and almost no natural slope to move it. On the edges, where lots back up to fields, there’s an extra factor — runoff and irrigation water moving off surrounding farmland can migrate toward the lower town lots, adding to what the yard already can’t drain. Reading where that water comes from is part of the job here.
For in-town yards, it’s collection and conveyance: catch basins and a French drain to a real outlet, with a sump where the lot is too flat. For the larger, farm-edge properties, grading and swales do more of the work, steering sheet flow and keeping it away from the house and any low outbuildings. Either way, the water has to be carried somewhere, because the caliche won’t take it.
Whatever the yard is doing, we bring the full range to Shallowater — and it all starts with understanding why yards here flood:
On the edges of Shallowater, the biggest surprise for a lot of homeowners is how much water arrives from somewhere else. A quarter-section of flat farmland can shed a remarkable amount of sheet flow in a thunderstorm, and if your lot sits downhill of it — even by inches — that water heads your way on top of what your own yard already can’t drain. Interceptor swales and a well-placed drain along the property line can catch that incoming water before it reaches the house, and it’s a very different design than a self-contained town lot needs.
A small town lot and a five-acre place on the field edge aren’t the same drainage job, and we don’t pretend they are. We walk the ground, find where the water collects and where it can go, and target the fix. Shallowater and the northwest Lubbock County area — call (806) 298-6289 for a free look.
Free on-site drainage assessments across Lubbock and the South Plains. We’ll tell you what’s actually causing the water — caliche, a flat lot, a nearby playa — and what it takes to fix it.