I will be replacing and re-routing some rain gutters on the back of my home. The roof that will be drained approximately covers approximately 600 square feet. I live in Seattle where it rains frequently, but not all that hard.
I am looking to do one of 3 possible options.
Option #1is to to hook into an existing pipe at a different location that leads to the storm sewer. This is the current set up, but for a number of reasons that would involve a bit of trouble. I suspect a break in that pipe and want to avoid having to dig the terra cotta pipe out and patch it with something new. It is also a ways off from where I would like the current drain pipe to drop at. A finished basement is in the future and I’d had to have a leak along the side of my house due to 85 year old pipe.
Option #2 would be to create a drainage field in my back yard. It will be torn up soon anyway for landscaping and a garge so while I’m at it I thought I’d consider the option. My yard runs about 50 feet from the back of the house to the edge of the property and the yard sits up about 3 1/2 feet with a retaining wall at the alley. The current grade slopes nicely away from the house. Would this extra water pose a significant increase in hyrdostaic presure on the current retaining wall? Would my yard turn in to a bog?
Option #3 would be to bury and run a pipe all the way out to the end of the back yard and through the retaining wall to the alley where there is a slight V slope and a storm sewer grate at the very end of the alley. I don’t know if this is code in the area (and I aim to find out first) but there seems to be a number of homes around here that dump their rain water this way.
Any thoughts on this would be helpful.
How do they do it in other parts of the country?
Anyone have any ideas on where i can get a start on reading material for this issue.
I hate to do it ( difficult to get clear info for a non contractor / engineer) but I plan to look through the Seattle city code for info as well.
Thanks
David
Replies
We've just started using a thing called a "Rain Garden" on-site stormwater retention system. It's like a small pond with a layer of washed stone in the bottom covered with a mat of good top soil and planted with bog plants. You run your gutter drains and any other storm water runoff you are trying to control into them and they hold the water and release it slowly into the soil on your site rather than just dumping it further down streamm. Google "Rain Garden" and you'll see it. It is not a pond it is a very small artificial wetland.
The idea is to keep the roof run-off out of the storm sewer or surface runoff. The issue is pollution of local streams and flooding as well as just plain reducing the amount of watering you need to do and creating diversity in your landscaping.
We've just done our first two this winter but from the look of things they will become a regular feature for us. They also help us score green points in the Green Building Initiative scoring and they are just a cool thing to add to the landscape plan.
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"You cannot work hard enough to make up for a sloppy estimate."
Sounds realy eco-cool..but couldn't find a commercial type install kit from a company ..."only" a lot of excellent city and community web sites with great info.Can you post a link or manufacturer's site ?
Aint no manufacturer involved, you dig a big hole or ditch with a backhoe. about 20" deep flat bottom (you need a spill way for huge storms and so forth) Then trench your gutter drains and swale your surface run-off into it and fill it up with a foot of course washed rock, a layer of filter fabric and 8" of good top soil. let it fill up with rain water and plant it up with bog plants. We did one about 20' X 30' and one 4' x 85' this winter. Not a whole lot to it but the homeowners feel really great about them and they are definately good for the environment. We've had some huge downpours this winter and I was concerned they would wash out but they did great, and stayed wet for a long time after every thing else had dried out. No standing water though so no concern about mosquito's.
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"You cannot work hard enough to make up for a sloppy estimate."
Any way you pipe it into the ground, make sure there's some sort of tee in the line that will let the pressure out if the pipe gets plugged.
Good idea, I'll do that on my next one.
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"You cannot work hard enough to make up for a sloppy estimate."
I am in Ore.
Same climate. I recently redid some of my gutters that were never connected to city storm sewer because the house was existing before storms came along and it sits down slope from the storms.
I used a "drywell"
I simply dug a 3' diam. hole about 4' deep and layed filter fabric into it then filled it with 1 1/2 rock almost to the top, covered it with soil. No problems here. I watched it as an empty and partially filled hole to check on the drainage during the course of the winter to make sure the soil drained.
Mine is however down slope from the house and I have no basement, I would want to make sure I had very good water protection on ANY basement finished or not .
I usually stick a 2" perforated pipe down into my drywells so that I can check the height of the water. It also helps the homeowner know where it is if they have a problem.
Great Idea.
I will do that with the two I have yet to build. Thanks for the tip.