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My husband and I just bought a new home and our yard constantly puddles after it rains. Not small puddles, but huge ones. I don't think the builders graded the yard right. How can we fix this?

You may have to regrade it. Sorry. But if the puddles are far enough away from the house to not be a problem consider if you want to do this. So much depends upon other things. If this is a newly built house contact the builder. If it is older and you want to keep down expenses you might be able to install a dry creek bed (rock lined ditch) but only if you have a place to drain it do... that is not your neighbors yard What is your soil? How long does it take to drain? Happen every rain or only downpours? Level or sloped lot?

If you have a basement and this is near the house you may have to install a french drain... another expense.

That may require regrading or the soil may be so compacted that water will not easily drain through it. Most of the soil I have seen in Alabama is clay and most of that has too little organic matter and water will not flow easily through unless that soil is well amended with organic matter. Or you may have a combination of both problems.
If the water simply sits on the surface and does not move you probably do not have a grade problem, but you do have a drainage problem very common after builders drive all over the place and compact an already compacted soil even more.

Hi Byee -- welcome aboard from a "nearly" neighbor. I'm about 40 miles east of you. Knowing that your ground is pretty sandy, and the amount of rain that has fallen lately, it may be that the ground is just saturated and can't absorb any more. If the builder didn't grade the yard right, it can cause problems even in sandy soil. This may be something that will take a while to remedy by slowly adding soil to the yard to even it out, making sure that it is sloped away from the house.

No doubt, due to heavy machinery during construction, the backyard has become compacted.
There's a method you can employ to relieve this but, if, as you say, its a NEW home, then surely a guarantee should be with the house to cover such after-built conditions.
Usually, with new construction, many builders' items such as bricks, mortar, two by fours, etc are left and covered over by the crew rather than picking it up and having to be disposed of.
This too can be a nuisance when you are attempting to get a lawn going. The builder should be held accountable. If the problem is just poor grading, then the water should be absorbed into the ground before it reaches large proportion of puddling. But if the water just sits, and does not permeate into the ground, then compaction I think can be the reason.

Get in touch with the builder or your lawyer and ask that your backyard be fixed so that you can have the yard you thought you should have.

If the area is noted for heavy rains, then possibly a cistern might be required to absorb such water problem.