A short yard run is a realistic weekend job for someone comfortable with a shovel and a laser level. A foundation drain is not, because it means excavating beside a footing. Two things catch people out either way: maintaining continuous fall, and having a lawful place for the water to end up.
What you would be digging through here
The largest mapped soil under Layton is Parleys loam, 0 to 4 percent slopes, with surface clay running as high as 23%. Before deciding to dig by hand, that is the single most useful thing to know: clay at that share is heavy, holds water, and will not go back into the trench as usable backfill. A hand-dug run here needs imported stone for its full length and produces spoil that has to go somewhere. In a city this size the utility locate is also not optional — the older streets carry services that are not where a plan says they are.
The reasoning behind that
Call for a utility locate first, every time. It is free, it is required, and the alternative is a gas line.
Fall is the part that fails silently. A drain needs continuous slope from the highest point to the outfall — commonly around an inch every eight to ten feet — and eyeballing it over a long run does not work. A laser or a string line and a level is the difference between a drain and a buried trough.
Materials are not the place to economize. Washed stone, not the spoil. Fabric between the stone and the soil. Perforations facing the right way for the design being built. A drain built without those works for a season or two.
The outfall is where DIY runs into rules rather than skill. Water may not simply be discharged onto a neighbor’s land or into a public drain without permission, and what is allowed is a question for the local authority before the trench is dug rather than after.
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