Help! lol
So I am finishing up my downspouts to get them over 5ft away from the house which I did. Used schedule 40 for this project(overkill? 🤷‍♂️) I am trying to terminate the line but not sure what to do here. My neighbor doesn’t want it to flood his yard, he doesn’t have a fence drain about 2ft away. Would a pop up emitter be my best option here? There is already a nice slope to the back of my house. Other option is to maybe put a 90 degree and have it run straight in my yard.
by A1Avi
25 Comments
Why in the world would you have gotten this far without figuring out where to put your drain first? A pop up emitter would work, technically, but only to move the water from directly next to your foundation to 5 feet away. I would suggest continuing the line to somewhere like the front of your house where it will likely run off to your municipal water system.
The downspouts on the back of my house go into a rain garden. But it looks like you might not have the space for one unless you convert that existing bed. It works pretty well. Contains all the runoff in all but the heaviest downpours. Took a lot of work to get it there though
Your pics are not very helpful, and this should have been determined before you started. It looks like you have a small lot that slopes toward your house, make sure when you cover that pipe you grade away from your house. I would use perforated drain pipe at the end of your Sch40 run following the natural slope of the land for as far as you can, hopefully 10-15′. The water will flow this way anyways since this is the natural slope of the land, and the perforated drain pipe will slowly dissipate the water as it travels.
I brought it 12 feet from the house then transitioned to triple layer perforated pipe for another 10 feet then a pop up emitter but you probably wouldn’t need it if u ran 20 feet of perforated pipe or more
I took my downspouts to the curb, where it drains to the street and into the sewers. I would also highly recommend adding cleanouts so you can blow out debris
Hard to tell from picture but your Y fitting near the corner looks to be backwards. Gutter adaptors look pretty big too for the size of your downspouts.
Start digging. Drywell
With the way it’s set up now, a dry well is your only viable option unless yours going to redo it and grade it properly.
Do not dump that water onto your neighbor.
If overall natural slope is towards your backyard, then turn in that way
Separate issue possibly: do you have a plan for clean out? I think normally you’d have a 45 angle with a threaded cap at ground level right after the downspout connection. You’ll want to have access to the pipe to clean out leaves and debris.
To the back of the house would be your best option. Don’t flood it towards your neighbor.
Just get the water as far away from the house as you can. Put in clean outs along the way, and use 45 degree (Y) angles so you can get a snake in when cleaning things out and wont have to make a 90. Just face them in the way the water is going.
I would also add a clean out or a y at the gutter connection. Helps me when I have to flush out leaves
My suggestion is Buy an NDS flowell and connect it. Add a popup emitter as an overflow option. Keeps it clean.
Instead of a 90° corner, see if you can find something a bit more gentle, like 60 or 45 angle.
Better get to diggin before the next rainstorm lol
Dig a dry well and keep it all on your property.
By doing a pop up emitter your drain line will always have stagnate water. I personally would not want this. Id think about putting in a catch basin with a sump. That way it will keep the drain line clear and you can route the discharge anywhere.
Alternative to get the water out the front, uphill, is to install a sump pump in a buried box. Install at the end of your run and discharge to the sidewalk / street. I used a Liberty Pumps SX35, but that appears to be discontinued. Not exactly cheap (just under $300 – $500 for the pump?). Fun watching the pump engage during the rain event and watching the amount of water it discharges.
I don’t know if this makes sense for where you are, but another approach might be to add rain catch barrels to your downspouts (they’ll irrigate your garden just past the PVC between rains), and route the overflow tubes into your drain system. That could lighten the load enough for most rainstorms that “terminating” in an uncapped perforated pipe in your lawn, just below the turf, would be enough. I did just that (but without perforated pipe), many years ago, and it was great. Every few years I’d dig enough to expose the end of the pipe, and drag out searching roots with help of a garden hose upstream.
Two other thoughts, that may or may not make sense in your area:
* generally it’s not a great idea to have soil right up on your brick veneer
* Call before you dig! Would suck if you took out your utilities with a shovel or trenching machine.
Sometimes there are no perfect options. You just have to pick the best. Which for you is a spot that keeps it away from your house and doesn’t dump much or any on your neighbors if possible. I’m assuming your neighbor was getting part or most of your water anyways so you moving it along should help. A lot of people do terminate them near a fence line because you have an open pipe. Basically a hole and a trip hazard. Generally the further you can get it away from your house and your neighbors house the better off you will be unless you have a clear slope that carries the water away.
Schedule 40 is definitely overkill here lol but you can extend the end maybe another 2 or 3 feet, dig a 2-3 foot deep hole that’s maybe 2 feet around, attach a T that goes up with a grate on a coupler, and cut a piece of pipe for the bottom bit just to empty into some pea gravel that you will fill to the bottom of the pipe. Easy peasy and the dry well should contain the water
Using pvc you’ll definitely want to you a debris basin before a pop up emitter or you’re asking for trouble. Lots of videos on YouTube about the consequences of not using one.
What’s behind your backyard?
If that’s the natural slope, you’re rub off it’s going that direction anyway so 90 towards the backyard, put in a pipe taking it past your house.
More work, sure, but that’s what you should do.
I would not run the pvc all of the way to the downspout. I would run the pvc to just above ground and then use 4” corrugated to connect to the downspout. It will make servicing it easier down the road.
You also have to paint exposed pvc because it will break down from uv.