Downspout Drywells

RobS · Jul 7, 2003

Hi Brandon, downspout drywells are not common around here either. It's mostly a result of my tendency to overengineer everything I get my hands on...

I buried the downspout drain lines (common around here) and got them well away from the house to direct the runoff away from the foundation. Once I get away from the grade right up at the house our land is dead flat. So really nowhere for the water to go. I didn't want water sitting in the drain lines so I needed to terminate below grade or use a pop up or something. Then I decided that I've spent so much time getting all that water below grade that I really didn't want it to come up again. Thus is born my drywell project.

Are you in tropical storm territory down there? A couple of inches is a big rain for us so this was a feasible project. In fact, we had a couple of inches yesterday and everything worked well.

About 100 miles south of us in Kokomo, IN (stoplight city) they got over 10 inches of rain. Maybe no big deal for the gulf coast but up here in the midwest that makes a huge mess. We drove through yesterday and were in awe at all the streams and rivers raging. Several side roads closed due to flooding. Not a common experience for us midwesterners /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

bnixon · Jul 7, 2003

Ooohhhh! It makes since now....Freezing! Some times my simple brain is a little slow..OK most of the time /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif!

Yes, I am in the hurricane zone down here. Matter of fact Allison put about 12" of water in my house, TWICE a few years back.

The way my wife and I looked at it was we had a house built in the 60's and it still looked that way. So we remodeled on State Farms bill. The glass is half full my friend!

Your solution would not work around here. We have way more rain that the well could handle!

Thanks for the feedback.

MossRoad · Jul 7, 2003

So Rob, were you away this weekend while we had all the rain? Wondered how the drywells worked. Kokomo sounded like a mess. I remember we had 5 inches here a few years back, and that caused trouble. I couldn't imaging 10 inches of rain. We'd be swimming in our basement. Hmmm.... maybe I'll look into flood insurance!

RobS · Jul 8, 2003

Yeah, we drug the camper down to Brown County for the weekend. Only rain down there was Saturday night but it was hot and humid the rest of the time. Indy had rain Thursday and Friday nights then we got hit on the way home Sunday. More last night I guess but I slept through it. Hope it's dry this evening, I've got shingles to lay /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif