Trenching downspouts

   / Trenching downspouts #31  
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.
 
   / Trenching downspouts #32  
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.
 
   / Trenching downspouts #33  
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.
 
   / Trenching downspouts #34  
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…
 
   / Trenching downspouts #35  
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.
 
   / Trenching downspouts #36  
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
 

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