I learned the drainage lesson the hard way myself. We found an old buried septic tank halfway through excavation—talk about unexpected setbacks. Definitely agree on grading too; french drains are great but they're just part of the puzzle. If you spend a little extra time upfront making sure water flows away from your foundation, you'll thank yourself later... especially after a heavy storm rolls through.
Interesting points about drainage, but do you really think grading is always worth the extra upfront effort? I mean, I get the logic behind it, but when we built our place, we focused more on strategic landscaping and planting native shrubs and trees to naturally absorb runoff. Haven't had any major issues yet, even after some pretty heavy rains. Maybe it's just luck... or maybe sometimes simpler solutions can be just as effective? Also curious—did you have any inspections done before excavation started? Seems like an old septic tank should've popped up during a basic survey or something.
