Buried Downspout exit in clay soil

[dziskovs]

Had my buried downspouts waterjetted and all were cleared except the one circled in image below:

The East side of garage and SE corner of the house are both tee'd into one black 4 inch corrugated drainage pipe as shown. The water jet head couldn't push much further than the circle which is already on the neighbor's property. My house was built in '76 vs theirs in '79, so its possible the downspout went across property lines to exit in the ravine further east of the image, but the downspout seems to be crushed or dead ends in the ground.

I dug down to find the pipe, and it is 12-13" to the top of the pipe.


The area is completely surrounded by hard clay soil, so I'm trying to figure out what my options are. To run the pipe North (up in first picture), It would be a slightly uphill run of about 150-175 ft to get to the hillside, so would need buried 18-20" deep compared to the current ground level. Running it south is slightly down hill, but I cross property lines if I go around the massive tree on the corner of driveway parking (in front of the "7" in the 379.45 label). Given that I have compacted clay soil, I don't think a dry well would do me any good, but I'm open to suggestions.

Thoughts on next steps? I could get the water jet guy back out to try and run a camera down there to see if it is truly crushed, or what it looks like at the end, where the jet couldn't go further. Not sure how to terminate the end staying on my property, and with clay soils.

EDIT: I should add, the reason I had downspouts jetted in the first place was that I get water in basement on SE and SW corners of the house, so trying to make sure storm water from roof flows away from house.

Thanks in Advance.

 

[Leaflessshadetree]

Install a pop emitter in the lawn.

 

[BillK]

How much rain do you get ? I have fairly clay soil and 40 years ago I ran one downspout underground about 30 ft away from the house and ended it in a pit about 4' square and deep and filled it with gravel like a giant dry well. Its been like that ever since. It settled a little bit the first year or two but now you would never know it was there.

 

[dziskovs]

How much rain do you get ? I have fairly clay soil and 40 years ago I ran one downspout underground about 30 ft away from the house and ended it in a pit about 4' square and deep and filled it with gravel like a giant dry well. Its been like that ever since. It settled a little bit the first year or two but now you would never know it was there.

I'm in NW Ohio, so spring is usually a month and a half of rain every other day. This summer has been relatively dry.

 

[mike93lx]

My yard is all clay and for one spot without the proper fall available, I put a sump pit in. Thankfully I was able to daylight all of the gutter though.

 

[pcmeiners]

Ask your neighbors if there are any sand/gravel layers within a reasonable depth. If so dig down , back-fill with gravel, and you have a permanent drainage solution. Where I lived before on Staten Island there is all clay but 5-10 feet down there are thick gravel/sand layers

 

[wssix99]

Install an access T fitting at the property line so you can re-insert the jet at that point and push further.

 

[dziskovs]

Going to see about adding a tee fitting, and seeing if they can come back out with the camera and water jet. Might be a few hundred dollars for the service call, but if it saves me from digging a 4 ft deep hole in hard clay soil, it might be worth it.

 

[Rusty Wrench]

I had exact same problem. Constant wet spot in basement same area as downspout which always surcharged in moderate or heavier rain. Camera showed crushed pipe. Turned out to be 75' of crushed pipe. Original install used left over septic pipe 0.025. Probably crushed at install by backfill.
Plumber dug out yards of saturated soil, backfill with stone and replaced pipe with 0.035. no problem since but took months before the wet spot dried.
I'm the second owner and I don't think it ever worked.

I think camera is best but may not identify full extent of problem.

 

[DGersic]

Had my buried downspouts waterjetted and all were cleared except the one circled in image below:

The East side of garage and SE corner of the house are both tee'd into one black 4 inch corrugated drainage pipe as shown. The water jet head couldn't push much further than the circle which is already on the neighbor's property. My house was built in '76 vs theirs in '79, so its possible the downspout went across property lines to exit in the ravine further east of the image, but the downspout seems to be crushed or dead ends in the ground.

I dug down to find the pipe, and it is 12-13" to the top of the pipe.


The area is completely surrounded by hard clay soil, so I'm trying to figure out what my options are. To run the pipe North (up in first picture), It would be a slightly uphill run of about 150-175 ft to get to the hillside, so would need buried 18-20" deep compared to the current ground level. Running it south is slightly down hill, but I cross property lines if I go around the massive tree on the corner of driveway parking (in front of the "7" in the 379.45 label). Given that I have compacted clay soil, I don't think a dry well would do me any good, but I'm open to suggestions.

Thoughts on next steps? I could get the water jet guy back out to try and run a camera down there to see if it is truly crushed, or what it looks like at the end, where the jet couldn't go further. Not sure how to terminate the end staying on my property, and with clay soils.

EDIT: I should add, the reason I had downspouts jetted in the first place was that I get water in basement on SE and SW corners of the house, so trying to make sure storm water from roof flows away from house.

Thanks in Advance.

I'd go back after it with the water jet, and a camera to see what is stopping the jet from going forward. If you can get it opened up to wherever the end is, get it sleeved so it doesn’t collapse again. That corrugated stuff isn’t great for actual draining water, and is too easy to collapse.

If that doesn’t work, and it may not, how well do you know your neighbor? You (probably) don’t want to dig up his yard, but you may be able to directionally bore a new exit under it. That wouldn’t disturb his visible property, so he may allow you to do it.

 

[dziskovs]

I'd go back after it with the water jet, and a camera to see what is stopping the jet from going forward. If you can get it opened up to wherever the end is, get it sleeved so it doesn’t collapse again. That corrugated stuff isn’t great for actual draining water, and is too easy to collapse.

If that doesn’t work, and it may not, how well do you know your neighbor? You (probably) don’t want to dig up his yard, but you may be able to directionally bore a new exit under it. That wouldn’t disturb his visible property, so he may allow you to do it.

The hole I dug is already on their property. Pretty good relationship, but I doubt they would be super comfortable with me boring a line under their driveway given I cross every major utility supply for their house to do so. I've got the plumber coming back out with water jet and camera to see if we can figure out what the blockage looks like. It was a few feet in front of where I dug, but was trying to stay away from utilities and dug closer to my property.

 

[DGersic]

The hole I dug is already on their property. Pretty good relationship, but I doubt they would be super comfortable with me boring a line under their driveway given I cross every major utility supply for their house to do so. I've got the plumber coming back out with water jet and camera to see if we can figure out what the blockage looks like. It was a few feet in front of where I dug, but was trying to stay away from utilities and dug closer to my property.

Yeah, that’s a touchy situation.

Can you connect the front to the back and drain it all that direction instead?

 

[pcmeiners]

"That corrugated stuff isn’t great for actual draining water"

But it is great for letting rocks/junk build up, so as to hamper jetting.It should not have been used

 

[4x4Pete]

You might find that a drain above ground keeps the water away enough to not leak into the basement. I have some incredibly hard clay. Water runs over it. Downspouts directed 6' away from the wall works perfectly to prevent water from leaking into the basement.

 

[The Bean]

My experience with a camera down the drain is that where it's holding water, the camera can not show you why. It just flashes white. Unless the water is perfectly clear.
I know this from checking in the sewer drain. God luck in the storm drain.

 

[mike93lx]

My experience with a camera down the drain is that where it's holding water, the camera can not show you why. It just flashes white. Unless the water is perfectly clear.
I know this from checking in the sewer drain. God luck in the storm drain.

If you give the water time to settle, a storm drain shouldn't be all that much of a problem to see

 

[DGersic]

You might find that a drain above ground keeps the water away enough to not leak into the basement. I have some incredibly hard clay. Water runs over it. Downspouts directed 6' away from the wall works perfectly to prevent water from leaking into the basement.

Draining on to the yard surface might just flood the neighbor’s driveway. There doesn’t look to be a lot of room to work with between the houses.

 

[pcmeiners]

If you give the water time to settle, a storm drain shouldn't be all that much of a problem to see

Problem is clay can take nearly 24 hours to settle...hate the stuff.

 

[545_days]

I'm guessing your pipe was crushed during the construction of the neighboring home three years later. It probably is worth taking a look now that you have unearthed the line closer to the blockage though. Who knows, the water jet could have pierced the pipe wall and be burrowing into the clay at that point, or the pipe could be separated. Stranger things have happened.

 

[Viper98912]

I had a similar issue, where there was a crushed line that was completely lost somewhere. (side note, I did later find it, when I was completely re-grading the entire yard with a bobcat skid steer, but it was luck only and of course I was tearing out the entire yard).

[Before I had found it somewhat in error] In the end, it wasn't worth trying to find the end to "fix" it. I just dug a new trench and put in a new line.

I'd say:

1) Install a pop up emitter right where you dug down and call it a day there (easiest option, and I have a couple of these in my yard and they blend in well with the green tops)

2) Install a new line and connect it to where you just found the pipe and forget about the old pipe, wherever it's lost, just leave it lost in the ground

 

[nadogail]

I dug a trench and dumped in gravel, added perforated ABS drain pipe then a layer of soil and then replaced the sod.
That was several years ago and there have been no further problems.

 

[HoosierBuddy]

What I did in a similar situation was to run PVC down a slope, set a small square junction box there with a grated lid, and then hook on to the outlet of that box with perforated tile. The perforated tile slopes steeply down into a dry well and is backfilled in clean (large) crushed stone.

It works great. During normal rain events the dry well takes the run off. If the ground gets saturated or we get a huge thunderstorm, water overflows the grate into the yard and runs down the slope. That happens infrequently enough that I don't have a ditch or anything like that created from the runoff. Did this in 2006. No issues since.

BTW...I used PVC for the section that goes under my driveway. Maybe I could have used perforated tile for the whole thing, but I had in my head that might increase the chance of the driveway cracking over the tile (freeze/thaw). Not sure if that was even a consideration. If I would have been running under grass the whole way, I would have used perforated tile the whole way.

 

[Skyman]

Perforated underground pipes are vulnerable to infiltration from roots, so this should be taken into consideration if this is a possibility. I'm dealing with this problem right now, having had the roots of nearby trees invade drainpipes.

 

[dziskovs]

Apologies as I posted and kind of forgot about this. Plumber was supposed to come today with camera, but they broke it at the stop before mine, so we are rescheduling now. I did put in a Tee Fitting in the hole I dug and added a PVC stand pipe connected to a pop up drain when I filled the hole back in. My hope is that in torrential rains, gravity/ pressure will push the water out there and dump to the yard instead of backing up at the house. The pop up drain is lower than where the downspout connects, so we will find out. I was planning to test it with the hose last weekend, but company showed up, and I haven't been able to get to it yet.

I filled the 4" corrugated pipe with water after I installed the T, and it drained down/ evaporated in a little under an hour, so some water is getting through, wherever it is going.

Neighbors have a little one and so do I, so I didn't want to leave a 3 ft wide/ 2 ft deep hole in the yard for much longer. If I need to dig it back up, at least it is loose clay now instead of concrete.

 

[Fixr]

Apologies as I posted and kind of forgot about this. Plumber was supposed to come today with camera, but they broke it at the stop before mine, so we are rescheduling now. I did put in a Tee Fitting in the hole I dug and added a PVC stand pipe connected to a pop up drain when I filled the hole back in. My hope is that in torrential rains, gravity/ pressure will push the water out there and dump to the yard instead of backing up at the house. The pop up drain is lower than where the downspout connects, so we will find out. I was planning to test it with the hose last weekend, but company showed up, and I haven't been able to get to it yet.

I filled the 4" corrugated pipe with water after I installed the T, and it drained down/ evaporated in a little under an hour, so some water is getting through, wherever it is going.

Neighbors have a little one and so do I, so I didn't want to leave a 3 ft wide/ 2 ft deep hole in the yard for much longer. If I need to dig it back up, at least it is loose clay now instead of concrete.

"Loose clay"

 

[Death Row Dave]

I live in clay also mine are daylighted into 2 in river wash stone

 

[BombShelter]

Just like pcmelners said, that pipe is junk. I've seen people send thousands of dollars putting in elaborate yard drains only to have them fail a short time after installation. There is a version with a yellow stripe that's slighty more robust but they all collect dirt in the corrugations, eventually filling up or they just collapse. Personally I'd use something like schedule 40 solid PVC (not DWV) 6" minimum diameter or galvanised if I went any larger.

Roofs drain a ton of water, if it gets below freezing the smaller pipe will also freeze solid. Leave the discharge end open, don't use any "popits." These always disappear after a few seasons and are forgotten, then the water just backs up at the downspout. Typically you don't notice until it starts running into the basement.

If you are having water issues in the basement, I'd look around the outside area for holes or cracks, even a hair-line mortar crack can let a lot of water pass through the wall. I've seen a lot of holes right next to the downspout collection basket, when they overflow with large rains, it goes straight into the wall.

 

[Joemctag]

"That corrugated stuff isn’t great for actual draining water"

But it is great for letting rocks/junk build up, so as to hamper jetting.It should not have been used

Is doing it right, with PVC pipe, an option? Just cuz everyone has the corrugated isn’t a good reason for you to. The plugged corrugated’s slits are probably directing that water to your basement.

 

[jblnut]

That corrugated stuff isn’t great for actual draining water, and is too easy to collapse.

Just like pcmelners said, that pipe is junk.

It’s not junk if it’s installed properly. I have over a million feet of 4, 6, 8 and 12’ pipe underground in my farm fields with some of it being in service for over 50yrs. The only issues we have are roots getting in and connections separating if something wasn’t installed properly. I’ve installed over 2 million feet for neighbors and others in the last 10yrs and we all have very very few issues.

I understand a farm field is a different deal than a residential yard but to make a blanket statement about the pipe style being junk is quite aggressive.

I can pop over and we can lay a new line in as deep as 6.5’ if you’d like

 

[ycgoat]

For keeping the basement dry, you just need to get the gutter drain away from the house which can be done using surface drains. I had a dried in basement set up that and a 10’ corrugated pipe loosely connected to the downspouts. I would move them to cut grass. This was a 70 year old setup a 1/4 mile from the bay in the coastal plain where drainage and ground saturation is always a challenge.

 

[BombShelter]

For the record I'm talking about the cheap stuff Menards and HD sell in 50' rolls that people hook to downspout drains. It's rare up here to find a working system after 3 or more years.