Trenching downspouts

[ray66v]

I suspect the same thing happens here, but never to any degree that has actually caused a problem with blockage or flow.

We get long winter stretches of 15 - 20F overnight lows with 30 - 35F daytime highs. So, average is below freezing, and ground stays relatively frozen, other than the top 1/2" taking the sun which softens each afternoon. The daytime sun will melt everything most days, with temperature anywhere near 32F, so water does flow into the pipes and probably freeze when it hits the cold pipe surface a foot or two underground.

We also get a few stretches most years of 0F to 20F days, but they rarely last much more than a week at a time, and then we're back up to that more typical 20F - 30F range.

Obviously not ideal, but it has just never caused a problem, at our latitude. The OP is in Ohio, so probably very similar weather to us, if not a little warmer.

This is one of the things people have trouble accepting, but it does work.

I am in Ohio, and where I live, there are no storm sewers.

Every home in my area discharges their downspouts into the drainage ditch at the street, which is less than 2' deep. My downspout drain's run about 15"-20" deep at bottom. You couldn't put them in below the frost line, on most properties here, if you wanted to.

Just like my sanitary drain, which is 12" deep, water isn't stored in there, it flows through it. Flowing water doesn't freeze, or, occur in down spouts during very cold weather. And, if the discharge is installed properly, the flowing water actually melts snow, and ice near it.

Yes, there is the potential for issues, if the installer doesn't pitch the pipes, or fails to allow for the discharge point to have sufficient area as to avoid the water pooling there. Like, if the pipe discharges in the bottom of a poorly draining ditch, that has standing water in it. Even then, the weather has to provide the right conditions for it to be a problem.

 

[oosik]

Amber, WA. I was going to make a joke about you probably knowing rainfall management better than the rest of us, based on widespread assumption that WA gets more rain than just about anywhere. But it turns out we get like 30% more rain than you, per year!

As we turned over to the new year - my Davis weather station registered - 15.73 inches of rainfall or equal( melted snow) for the entire year. This is right at our normal annual amount. Amber is in NE WA. Over on the dry side of the state.

Seattle and Olympia are on the wet side.

A REALLY wet day here will be 1/2 inch of rain in a 24 hour period.

 

[oosik]

ray66v - you have never lived where the flowing water gets REALLY cold. So very cold, 28F, that lenticular ice crystals form, sink to the bottom of a creek. The bottom builds up due to this weird action and the creek will actually overflow its banks.

This happens to both Campbell Cr and Chester Cr as they flow thru metropolitan Anchorage. Building lots along both creeks were at a premium price. Expensive homes became a local disaster as the creeks flooded them.

This is what you get when there are more real estate agents than common sense folks on your local zoning commision.

 

[WinterDeere]

As we turned over to the new year - my Davis weather station registered - 15.73 inches of rainfall or equal( melted snow) for the entire year. This is right at our normal annual amount. Amber is in NE WA. Over on the dry side of the state.

Seattle and Olympia are on the wet side.

A REALLY wet day here will be 1/2 inch of rain in a 24 hour period.

Wow... that's dry. It's so easy to lump a whole state together, when looking at it from 3000 miles away.

We get about 50 inches per year, which ideally happens at a rate of 1" per week. But more often we see much more than 1" per week in April and November, with relatively dry mid-summer and mid-winter.

 

[ray66v]

ray66v - you have never lived where the flowing water gets REALLY cold. So very cold, 28F, that lenticular ice crystals form, sink to the bottom of a creek. The bottom builds up due to this weird action and the creek will actually overflow its banks.

That's right, nor would I ever live there.

They have lots of issues in the arctic, the rest of the world doesn't.

 

[jyoutz]

Aren't you worried about freezing? I got some 3" aluminum pipe and put mine above ground. They are high enough that I can easily mow under them.

If the pipe has enough drop to drain quickly, freezing isn’t a concern.

 

[ponytug]

Hmmm. I've certainly experienced the subsurface pipe filling with ice enough to block it. Usually the roof gets enough solar to start a melt, and the ground is still frozen. Under the right weather conditions, the ice slowly builds up.

@Tpondel if this is a concern, I would bury the pipes with 2" of foam board above it in the trench a couple of inches wider than the pipe.

I use a trencher, and I only use solid pipe because around here the perforated corrugated pipe only has a very short lifespan. I have used 4" solid pipe with holes about 25% of the way up the pipe. Those get geotextile lined trenches, with pea gravel, and there is a layer of geotextile around the pipe itself. My personal issue with geotextile is that there is always some size of dirt or sand that will plug it, so the geotextile will stop working at some point, which is why I prefer solid pipe.

If it works for you, my favorite is drainage swales. They don't plug, crush, or get easily blocked, but your site has to have the space and slope to support them.

All the best,

Peter

 

[LDR812]

While planning the drainage it might be a good idea to consider any other improvements you might want to do while the trenching is open. I.e. water spickets, power outlets etc

 

[thclimer]

I'd say your type of ground has a lot to do with what method you decide to use to dig.

Our property is very rocky and probably not the norm. We have lots of rocks ranging in size from a baseball to 1-2 feet in diameter. A trencher or most anything except a backhoe or excavator would be able to dig much more than 3-4" deep on our property. Almost every time I've dug a trench on our property I've had to find extra dirt to fill it in as I didn't want to put 1-2 foot diameter rocks back in on what I had laid in the trench.

I've also lived where the ground is very sand/loamy and you could a 2-3' deep hole in a matter of minutes by hand with long handled shovel. I was younger then and digging a 30' long trench by hand maybe would have taken a few hours.

 

[Oaktree]

If the pipe has enough drop to drain quickly, freezing isn’t a concern.

I dunno about that. My gutter downspouts fill completely with ice over the course of the winter, and they're vertical.

 

[jyoutz]

I dunno about that. My gutter downspouts fill completely with ice over the course of the winter, and they're vertical.

Hmm. Never heard of that unless they’re shaded and never get sun.

 

[WinterDeere]

I dunno about that. My gutter downspouts fill completely with ice over the course of the winter, and they're vertical.

I'll believe that. But the trouble here is that we have a group of people operating from south Texas up thru Fairbanks Alaska, looking for common advice and solutions. What works for the OP in Ohio is likely going to be very different from anyone in SC or NH.

 

[dstig1]

I have downspout drains under ground here too (sent to daylight in the forest downhill). The freezing concern definitely happens here in the spring time but it is short lived and has never been a problem. Melting is not a fast event here. The thing you are most trying to fix is the heavy flow from thunderstorms that you want to move away from the foundation. Due to proper foundation and waterproofing design and construction (plus sloping away) we don't have any water issues here so a short term problem of backing up in the spring does not result in any real issues. YMMV

One point to make is to never use the corrugated black plastic drain tile pipe as it tends to collapse very easily underground. Just use white PVC, not perforated (unless you are trying to do a french drain thingy or something)

Oh yeah - and a trencher rental works great for this. Just make sure it is a beefy one.

 

[ultrarunner]

The old barn has copper gutters and downspouts added after the wood ones disintergrated.

All then moves underground in 6” ABS with clean outs.

So far so good…

 

[WinterDeere]

On black corrugated, yes the 4" stuff does collapse pretty easily, if you're driving a tractor around on it. But the 6" and larger diameters are much, much heavier. I'd challenge anyone to collapse 8" black corrugated... ever.

When working in 4" or 6", I really prefer SDR-35 over anything else. I will use full sch.40 PVC under anything that will be totally inaccessible later (e.g. concrete patio), but everywhere else gets SDR-35. We have a large house built in 4 phases over 280 years (actually 6 phases, if you count two large patios with separate drainage systems), and this has resulted in multiple completely-separated drainage systems leading away from house to wetlands at the property boundaries, roughly 1/4 mile of the stuff. Never any problems with SDR-35.

 

[dstig1]

The heavier stuff gets you up into culvert zip codes, but is much less common for the average person to find. I have a big 12" plastic one under one part of my driveway and ain't no collapsing that! You typically see people ending up with the rolls of 4" corrugated at HD and it just doesn't hold up. 2 different worlds