Question on downspout drainage

[rlee6]

The posts on drainage threads were much informative. I wonder if I can use the perforated pipe to drain rainwater from downspout.

When it pours, the water from downspout does not seep into the soil fast enough and floods the paved walkway to the house. My neighbor's house is 1 foot higher than mine, so I can only bury the pipe between the neighbor's and mine, toward the street. In this direction, there is not much downslope. If I bury the pipe in this near-level field, will it still work?

By the way, I am not talking about multi-acre lots. In my neighborhood, houses sit on typically 60x100 feet lots. Thanks for advice.

 

[Junkman]

You could run the pipe almost horizontal to horizontal and it will still work. Using perforated pipe will not add anything to the disposal of the water. Just what comes out the end is all that you can expect of it. Some towns don't allow the downspouts to be dumped on the town streets, so camouflage your pipes end if this is the case.

 

[brad_oatley]

You'll need to oversize it if it is near level, 6" will be fine.

Not to hijack the thread but does anyone know where to get oversized gutters? All I can find around here is the 5x4 rectangular. I've got white pines and because of the needles, need extra width and depth.

 

[rlee6]

Thanks for the replies. By the way, I failed to describe my situation adequately. I just don't see how I can discharge the pipe to street. It has to be terminated underground. So, what I am thinking is a pipe that runs slightly downslope for about 20 feet and terminates abruptly. Will it still work? Will it wash off the soil at the discharge end? What if I place rocks at the discharge end?

How deep should the pipe be buried? Since it never freezes in Central Florida, can it less than 1 foot deep?

One more question: How do I connect the downspout to the drainage pipe? I still cannot visualize the setup of the upstream end of drainage pipe. Thanks for advice.

 

[Junkman]

You can purchase oversized metal gutters from Harvey Building Supply in Auburn MA. I don't know if they have any sales yards in CT. You will need a contractor to order them for you and they come in sizes up to 38' the last time that I checked. They are also heavier gauge metal. Better solution is to cut down the pines.....

 

[fractal]

I had a new driveway poured at our old house. Those folk were on the ball. They saw a downspout and put in a length of 4 inch courogated pipe. It pointed straight up just below the bottom of the downspout and ran horizontally in a diagonal towards the edge of the driveway and the street. It was left "sticking out" just outside the driveway burried in gravel.

No matter how much it rained, I never had water puddling at the downspout.

I sure had a buncha water coming up out of the gravel next to the driveway and flowing to the street. There was maybe 4-6 inches of drop from the house to the street.

 

[rambler]

</font><font color="blue" class="small">( Thanks for the replies. By the way, I failed to describe my situation adequately. I just don't see how I can discharge the pipe to street. It has to be terminated underground. So, what I am thinking is a pipe that runs slightly downslope for about 20 feet and terminates abruptly. Will it still work? Will it wash off the soil at the discharge end? What if I place rocks at the discharge end?

How deep should the pipe be buried? Since it never freezes in Central Florida, can it less than 1 foot deep?

One more question: How do I connect the downspout to the drainage pipe? I still cannot visualize the setup of the upstream end of drainage pipe. Thanks for advice. )</font>

You are collecting water from the whole surface of your roof, so you will need a discharge area about as big to absorb all that water. 20' of perf pipe won't make a dent in the situation.....

First of all, you need to look up your city codes. Some are extremely specific of what is and is not allowed. Much of what I suggest below may not be allowed.

The easiest is to let the water run out the end of your pipe farther away from your house - somewhere downhill of where you start. Don't need perf pipe for this, you are just moving water away from your house to a lower location - where the water wants to go anyhow. Problems: neighbors below you will get drowned, or you may be the low spot & no where to go.

You can do a French drain of some type. This is a large hole in the ground, several feet deep. Either an empty tank or a pile of rock with lots of gravel around either. You run your drain pipe to this. It holds the water, & slowly drains away from here. Problems: Most are illegal as they have problems with people introducing bad stuff into the ground layers with this; if you are in a wet low location nothing much drains away anyhow, you need to size it big to handle the large flush of water you get off your roof.

You can do the drainage you are talking about, basically you are making a leach field for your roof. The do not take water very fast at all, so you need a _lot_ of pipe, or a holding tank that accepts all the water at one time, and then it drains out the long pipe over time.

Tie into the exsisting city stormwater drains. Best solution, only one of you are the lowest lot on the block, need to jump through a lot of hoops to get the city to go along with it. Note this in not the sewage system, most cities do not allow connecting water drainage to that; but a seperate stormwater system most cities have or are installing these days.

--->Paul

 

[ByronBob]

I rented a ditch digger for this problem a few weeks ago. You can buy attachments at HD or Lowes for tying in your spouts. Run solid flex pipe near the house to run the water away from your basement. After that run perforated down the yard away from the house. Buy landscape fabric or socks to cover the pipe to prevent mud from seeping in. With no pitch you can only hope for saturation to help you. With less yard to deal with than most others you might want to run several lines to get more leaching of the pipe in the ground.

Either way your problem of ponding near the house should disappear. Rains really hard no matter what won't disappear unless you tie into a sewer drain and thats not possible.

Good luck. I'm really happy I did mine. The house foundation is really dry because of it

 

[rlee6]

Thanks for all the replies. By the way, I was reading a Reader's Digest book on do-it-yourself and found the French drain (or dry well as the book calls it). I didn't know it is illegal. I will call the city and find out.

By the way, my roof is less than 30 squares (less than 2000 square feet under the roof). It has 4 downspouts. Only one is a concern since it drains basically back toward the house which sits lower than neighbor's house. It beats the purpose totally. In the worst case (if the city says dry well is illegal), I will bury a non-perforated pipe for the first 10 feet and perforated for another 10 and cap it. I will see how it goes in a heavy rain. If it backflows, I will add another pipe.

Tying to the city stormwater pipe sounds great. I will ask the city.

Our neighborhood is in a high ground. (relative term since all land in florida is low) No mucky soil anywhere. It used to be an orange grove and citrus trees don't like flooding at all. It's all sandy soil that drains fast.

Thanks again for the replies. I got MANY ideas from your replies.

 

[Junkman]

Sometimes it is better not to ask the question and to just do it. If you have sandy soil, why not just drop the water a little further away from the house by using a surface pipe. I don't believe that a buried pipe that is capped is going to do much for you, even if you add another. If you want to get an idea of how much comes off that side of the roof, then put a 5 gallon pail under the down spout and the next time it rains, calculate the amount of time it takes to fill the pail. This will give you an idea of how many gallons of water you will receive in a given amount of time. I am not familiar with your part of Florida, but when I was in the Miami area, it seems that in 5 minutes, you could have an inch or more of rain many times.

 

[daedong]

at ground level You do not need fall to the road to dispose rain water from a roof to the road.

Use PVC stormwater pipe from the gutter come down the wall to a trench running to the road a few elbows back up to gutter hight. As long as it is all glue up properly you will never have a problem.

the pipes going into this tank are from my house roof. The gutter outlets are only 6" above the top off those pipes, they have been there 3 years with no problems to date.
Pipe and tank pic

 

[DannyD]

Daedong,

this may be a dumb question but what is the tank for, or more correctly what is the water in the tank for. I am not sure if that is legal here, but we are billed for all the water we use on our sewer bill, so my water costs me about a 100.00 a month in reality. We get no break for watering the lawn or washing the car. I dont know if I could get the cost back ever, but that would be a neat idea for here to do those simple little chores with.

 

[daedong]

Danny.

The only water i have is pumped straight from the River Murray. The river Murray is a very long river (at a guess 1500mls), from what i understand it would hardly rate as a river in USA, it hardly flows most of the time and water quality is very poor. So i try to mix it with rainwater as much as i can. I also like the river water to settle before it is pumped into the house. So the tank is 1/2 to 3/4 filled every so often with river water and rain water tops it up. I hope you can make sense of that.
This tank is 7000 gall (imperial). In high rainfall area's this would collect enough water to maintain house use. These tanks are very common here and infarct some local governments subsidies there purchase along with solar hot water systems

PS. at the moment due to drought nearly everyone in OZ is on water restrictions, It is a criminal offense at times to water your garden with a sprinkler. (driest continent on earth and here it is the driest state)