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I have two downspouts that drain significant amounts of roof area and am trying to find a reasonable way to channel them away from my foundation. Here is the situation: both drain in a mulch bed which has house in one direction, attached garage in another, brick walkway (and adjacent upsloping yard) in third direction, and a six foot grassy area followed by a 12 foot wide blacktop driveway in other direction. If I had a pipe under driveway I could channel the runoff to daylight on the other side and everything would be perfect, but, alas, the original owners did not plan for this. Driveway is in perfect condition, so I would prefer not to cut it, trench in a pipe, patch it, and gaze at the patch everytime I look out there. The solution I can think of is to bring in a backhoe and dig a six (?) foot hole in the grassy area and fill it with stone or some kind of giant perforated catch basin which could be covered with soil and grass again and, hopefully, wouldn’t overflow or clog. I have no idea of how to decide what size this thing should be. Another possible solution I thought of would be to run slighty pitched extensions from these downspouts right up to the stone base of the driveway and hope that the base would work as a drainage field for all this water without making the blacktop subside.
Anybody have any ideas as to whether either of these solutions seem better, or are both likely to fail?
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Check your local Yellow Pages for Drilling and Boring Contractors. For the right amount of money you can have a pipe under your driveway without tearing it up. You could attempt to wash one through yourself but those big pipes are a bear to move.
I think if you try to contain that water in a giant catch basin you are asking for an eventual washout of the driveway and the brick walkway and are negating your effort to keep the water away from your foundation.
*If the driveway slopes away from the house, just dump it on the driveway. Or like I did many years ago and have since removes as it is probably illegal is to put it into the city sewer. But they don't like that at all..
*There is no way that a catch basin is going to drain away that much water. Do you actually NEED gutters in the first place? Can't remember what they are called, but I just built a new house and I'm going to test a new product that attachs in place of a gutter and causes the runoff to simply "spray" out over the yard. If these work, the only place I'll put gutters is where we come in/out of the house. Gutters are primarily to keep water out of your collar, and to keep from washing out expensive landscaping. When did we decide they are mandatory? Why is it a good idea to take small amounts of widely dispersed runoff and channel it to one place?
*Lee: ignore Crusty's dimissal of gutters. You have already identified that you need to get the water away from your foundation. (I don't, because of our slab on grade and excellent percolation so I just have drip edges over the doors - gutters would come down with the snow each spring. I also disagree about catch basins having used many to discharge as much as 100,000 gallons per day. A big rain on my house would generate about 1000 gallons. Is just a question of how big and deep a catch basin you would need in your soils. Dig a test hole as deep as you can manage and measure how much water you add how often to keep it topped off. Figure how fast the rain might come (1 inch in 4 hours?). Increase the perimeter surface area of your catchment basin accordingly (by going bigger and deeper).As Ralph points out, you can hydraulically bore a hole yourself up to maybe 15 feet (if you've got fine-grained soils). There are directional drillers (expensive) but also little self-propelled pneumatic rams (ditch witch makes one) that tunnel from pit to pit trailing a compressed air hose behind them. Cool idea, but probably not at the rental yard. A contractor with backhoe, jackhammer-sized air comcpressor, and the borrowing beastie could do it and be gone in 2 hours.Gstringe is right on both points - 1) one way to make the water go away is to send it to the waste water treatment plant (they don't have look out the window to see if it is raining, their flowmeters tell them that because of all the illegal crossconnections). And 2) they don't like it; it is certainly against their regulations; and the local building codes. If it has been incorporated into the muncipal code, there may be fines attached. But it is hard to catch anyone.To throw out another possibility: A sump pump could be used to move the water away in another direction and through a relatively small pipe. If you have a 2000 square foot footprint and can get an inch of rain in 4 hours, you need to move 5 gpm. adjust upward for a bigger house or bigger storms. 3/4 pipe handles 5-7 gpm nicely. 1 inch pipe handles 12 gpm. With automatic float switch, you're looking at about $80-120 for a 1/3 hp pump. -David
*Lea, I can't quite picture your set-up, but one solution I've used is to get past a sidewalk is to build a trellis over the side walk and run the downs through the trellis structure.Bob
*It's not a catch basin, it's a dry well and has to be properly detailed, including filter fabric, crushed stone, etc. I tend to agree with Dave on gutters.If done properly and if the native soil conditions are reasonable, it will work fine. BTW, properly done, they aren't cheap.Jeff
*Ive always know them as french drains.Had to install one once to recieve laundry waste water,so as to not overload the septic field.It looks like a small septic tank with perforation holes in it.Then surronded it with 2' band of p-stone.If you think soil conditions wouldnt work with this idea is it possible to install a sump pump in this unit so if it overloaded the sump would discharge the extra water(by holding sump towards the top of the tank).If tank can handle the water then the pump shall never have to kick on.
*Similar ideas, except a drywell is a point to which you drain, a french drain is a linear, continuous crushed stone bed around a perf pipe with filter fabric.Jeff
*Hi!We built a house on a few acres in rural North Carolina last year. We're in a low spot, water runs to us from adjacent properties. It's also really sandy; there's no topsoil. Before summer, it was dry under the crawl. Then it got moist. Then we got millipedes. We are planning to put in French drains around the house. How close should they be to the foundation walls? One round of defense or two? How should we do the French drains?Any advice appreciated. Thanks.
*Crusty, I know several people who have tried that product, and I not one is happy with it. Don't invest too much in it-try it in just one area first, before you commit to it.John
*LeeAnswer a couple of questions, we'll get some advise:What state (of the union, not confusion)? Rainfall and climate are important.Freezing seasons?Soils clay, sand, loam, rock?Size of roof to each leader? How far apart?David Thomas has great comments. Thanks. Here are some afterthoughts:I have used sumps for drainage before. Funny thing though. Always seem to loose power during the most intense storms. Go figure...Go paddle. Maybe just my bad luck!As a professional engineering consultant, I have been paid over $64,000 to study, search and find illegal connections to public sewer systems. Guess who paid for my bills? Violators? You are hereby served! Please do not contribute.And do not even think of putting drainage water near or under a drive, especially if it is fresh. If you think that neat linear patch for a new pipe would be obtrusive, think about the irregular, often repaired area where the water discharges and the ground continues to pump and settle. Remember, mother nature got her own way. If you don't get it now, you will!DahlPro.com
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I have two downspouts that drain significant amounts of roof area and am trying to find a reasonable way to channel them away from my foundation. Here is the situation: both drain in a mulch bed which has house in one direction, attached garage in another, brick walkway (and adjacent upsloping yard) in third direction, and a six foot grassy area followed by a 12 foot wide blacktop driveway in other direction. If I had a pipe under driveway I could channel the runoff to daylight on the other side and everything would be perfect, but, alas, the original owners did not plan for this. Driveway is in perfect condition, so I would prefer not to cut it, trench in a pipe, patch it, and gaze at the patch everytime I look out there. The solution I can think of is to bring in a backhoe and dig a six (?) foot hole in the grassy area and fill it with stone or some kind of giant perforated catch basin which could be covered with soil and grass again and, hopefully, wouldn't overflow or clog. I have no idea of how to decide what size this thing should be. Another possible solution I thought of would be to run slighty pitched extensions from these downspouts right up to the stone base of the driveway and hope that the base would work as a drainage field for all this water without making the blacktop subside.
Anybody have any ideas as to whether either of these solutions seem better, or are both likely to fail?