Downspouts draining in to ground (?)

[Daubs]

Moved in to acreage end of July.

Previous owner (#3) disclosed they had to tear out garage floor and 20' of driveway...settling issues.

The house has had three owners...

Owner #1 build house in 2001.
Owner #2 lived in house from 2005-2015
Owner #3 lived in house from 2015-2018 (repaired garage and driveway)

Prior to purchase we had structural engineer inspect house, and he felt everything was stable. Recommended some dirt work on north and south sides of house to help with drainage.

Each downspout goes in to ground via 4" black corrugated pipe, and I just assumed they emptied in to yard. After a couple of mowing I couldn't find any exit points for downspouts.

I had opportunity to speak with owner #2 this weekend over a few beers. I asked about the downspouts and where they emptied. He said they do not drain out...claimed he just got a big auger and drilled down 4-5', filled hole with rock, and directed each downspout directly in to the hole, right next to foundation(!)

No wonder the garage floor had settling issues.

So project #2 will be fixing this issue

Note: Project #1 is tearing out all the carpet in the house. Owner #3 let cat and two dogs piss all over the house. I mean ALL over the house. They must have fabreezed the heck out of this place, it smelled great at all viewings and even final walk through. After wife had carpets cleaned, all the smells started emerging.

Amazing what people do to houses. But like my Dad always says, "when you buy a used house/car, you are always buying someone's headache..."

#Truth

 

[JamesW84]

The downspouts should daylight, but it sounds like you know that. I had issues with my house too, and should have gotten a structural engineer before purchase, but didn't. That being said, I probably wouldn't have bought the place. I ended up fixing my problem for $500 after being quoted 10-30k for things I didn't need, which was confirmed by a structural engineer.

 

[HoosierBuddy]

I really like what I did with my garage downspouts.

They they go underground in PVC, cross under the driveway, go another 10 feet and empty into a box with a grated top out in the yard. The outlet of that box is perforated tile. I dug the trench for the perforated tile with a trencher and just kept sloping it down until the trencher boom was straight down (about 5 feet deep) and bouncing over the top of the limestone under my yard. I backfilled all of that in #2 stone to make a "french drain".

My yard slopes away from the garage, so the grate on top of the box is several inches under driveway level. In a modest rain the french drain takes all the water. In a heavy rain the water fills the box and goes out through the grate and makes a puddle in the yard.

The grate also gives me a cleanout for the line under the driveway.

You could do something similar with your down spouts. Trench out away from the house for 20 feet or so and then set boxes and go on with french drains.

Good luck and call before you dig.

Phil

 

[Trey T]

The most ideal way to managing the house foundation is to capture all rain and transport it to the street or ditch in front of your house as quickly as you can. Some of the best houses built in Houston will have more linear-feet of gutters in the back (and sides) of the house than front. I've done enough forensic on structures that have erosion issues to realized that many builders neglect or ignore the potential issue of rain.

If you don't have down spouts in around the homes, you better have adequate ground slopes to transport the run-off quickly away from your foundation.

There needs to be a re-teach of installation of gutter system, and this is my wish: put priorities on having a proper gutter system for the rear of the house (or the side of the house) and less on the front of the house.

 

[930dreamer]

I'm all for having a downspout exit into a 3-4' spout into the yard etc away from the house. If leaves and stuff plug up the underground system its a bit more difficult to unplug.

 

[Joe_K]

For permits I had to follow a storm water management plan. Downspouts for my shop drain into 2400 cu ft of #3 stone wrapped in geotextile paper.

 

[ishiboo]

Big mistake, wow. Would have been quite literally better off just not having any gutters and doing any of that, that would at least spread the water out on the surface that close to the foundation instead of giving it easy access in large volumes to it!

 

[Daubs]

I live is a small "village" (unincorporated town) just north of Omaha. We have no codes or water management plans to deal with. Walkout house and the property slopes towards a creek. Cornfield beyond the creek.

I am going to simply install downspout hinge and 3-4' extension to get water away from foundation. Still can't believe previous owner was catching water next to foundation.

Front of the house will be a bit of a challenge...one of the downspouts terminates between porch and sidewalk. This is one of two downspouts that drains 70% of the front of the house, so lots of water. No wonder the garage and driveway sank and had to be replaced.

I am going to tunnel under the sidewalk, install 4" drain pipe, then push out in to yard 15-20' away from house, on a downward slope.

 

[PelicanPines]

We had one that "had an issue" with draining near the foundation. So... I sank 4" pipe... 40' diagonal to the foundation at a 1 foot drop along the 40'... It drains into a 27 cubic foot bottomless drain barrel... filled with 8" bolders… buried. I covered the top with a 5' round stainless table top. Covered in rocks and dirt...

Still works great... nothing has settled... I have driven over this thing with my car, tractor... even my fat nephew walked over it... with no issues.

 

[Squankum]

HoosierBuddy, how did you get the PVC pipe under your driveway? Is your driveway gravel?

Extended drainpipes: I live in a part of the country with average 46" of rain per year, and building inspector and engineer told me to extend the gutter outflow to 12 feet from the wall, minimum.

(My foundation walls also have some issues with soil mass and bowing.)


_

 

[NUTTSGT]

I'd atleast get them out and drain out on the ground for now before they do any more damage.

I'd hate to think what else owner #2 might have done.

 

[strutaeng]

Sounds like they did a dry well? But too close to the house.

If you have the fall, just run sdr35 to get the water away from the house. Don't use that corrugated black stuff. It is easy to work with, but will likely fail in 10 years. Also, the friction coefficient ***** on the corrugated vs any smooth-wall pipe. If the pipe needs to be more than 100', put a cleanout somewhere in there...

 

[Daubs]

Sounds like they did a dry well? But too close to the house.

If you have the fall, just run sdr35 to get the water away from the house. Don't use that corrugated black stuff. It is easy to work with, but will likely fail in 10 years. Also, the friction coefficient ***** on the corrugated vs any smooth-wall pipe. If the pipe needs to be more than 100', put a cleanout somewhere in there...

Yes, dry wells next to the house...one at each downspout. From talking with neighbors, owner #2 was a little sketchy. I am going to dig up a few "dry wells" this week and see how he did it. I expect it was done 1/2 way, at best.

And yes, getting water away from house is priority #1 right now.

The black corrugated stuff has worked well for me in the past. I ran 50' section at my old house (in the city). It held up well for 13+ years. I won't need a clean-out, no where near 100'.

I may put a small dry well beneath the pop-up at the end.

 

[Daubs]

HoosierBuddy, how did you get the PVC pipe under your driveway? Is your driveway gravel?

Extended drainpipes: I live in a part of the country with average 46" of rain per year, and building inspector and engineer told me to extend the gutter outflow to 12 feet from the wall, minimum.

(My foundation walls also have some issues with soil mass and bowing.)

_

Omaha averages around 30" of rain per year. Previous house was in city / sub-division. All extended drainpipes were around 2-3'. Never had any issues.

This house has concrete block foundation. There was settling, and some minor cracking in foundation. It was repaired.

We had house inspected by structural engineer. All good to go.

 

[strutaeng]

Yes, dry wells next to the house...one at each downspout. From talking with neighbors, owner #2 was a little sketchy. I am going to dig up a few "dry wells" this week and see how he did it. I expect it was done 1/2 way, at best.

And yes, getting water away from house is priority #1 right now.

The black corrugated stuff has worked well for me in the past. I ran 50' section at my old house (in the city). It held up well for 13+ years. I won't need a clean-out, no where near 100'.

I may put a small dry well beneath the pop-up at the end.

Fair enough. Here's a handy tool for calculating discharge. It gives required diameters for smoothwall and corrugated.

https://www.ndspro.com/drainage-pip...off=1.0&25-year-rainfall=3&slope-drain-pipe=1

Good luck.

 

[kbs2244]

This is how my sump pump and down spout system works.

The fist PIC is the over all “Christmas Tree” at the back r of the house.
It shows the two downspouts into 4 inch PVC tees and the smaller 2 inch sump pump into a 4x2 inch tee.
The 2 inch goes in under the down spout trash screens. The exit into the larger pipe provides a vacuum break that prevents any back flow. You might be able to make out tee and a ball valve in the 2 inch line. That is because I use that tee in the spring to the sump water for filling the swimming pool.
(I have borrowed the term Christmas Tree from the oil industry. It is their term for a collection point of many underwater wells to a pumping to a station. I am relying on gravity, but I am collecting from 3 sources.)

The two down spouts are from the front and back sides of the house. Between them they collect over 80% of the roof area of a 4 bed room, two story, Colonial. Sorry, I don’t know the SF off the top of my head.

This is what I use to keep leaves and such out of the long pipe. It is meant to be a leaf guard for flat roof drains.
I turned it upside down and slipped it into the 4 inch PVC bell. I did have to whittle away a bit on the flange to get it to fit. I used the wire brush on my bench grinder for this. It is shown right side up, I flipped it over.

This PIC shows the screens in place. I have tied some twine on them to make it easier to take them out for cleaning. They work very well. Even with down spout guards in the gutters some stuff gets through. The peace of mind it gives me by keeping trash out of the long underground run was worth the small cost and effort.

This is where the drain goes. 180 feet away.

This is the end in the woods.

I had to keep the pipe high. It goes over some of my septic system. It is no where near being below the frost line. So I had to keep enough slope in it to drain it dry after each use to prevent a freeze blockage. This was my biggest concern of the whole project. I did not have more than a foot of elevation to work with.

To maintain that slope I used a 4 foot level with a full bubble off level at each joint. I used the light weight gray pipe because I will never be driving over it with anything but a lawn tractor. It came in 20 foot lengths. To make sure I wouldn’t get low spots in the run I did several light back fills with soaking after each. That settled the dirt under the pipe. I checked the slope a day after each backfill. If I got low spots I had loops of twine that I had put around the pipes as I laid it. This gave me an easy handle to lift the pipe with before throwing in more dirt and soaking again.

The soaking of the backfill is absolutely needed. The pipe will sag without a firm base and you will get low spots that will freeze. I don’t remember how long it took. It may have been a week of small backfills before I felt comfortable covering it up.
One big advantage of doing it this way was I had no hump over the ditch when I backfilled. The soaking of small refilled settled everything.