On Mar 14, 1:17*pm, Erma1ina wrote:
Eric Keller wrote:

On Mar 13, 6:10 pm, aemeijers wrote:
Jim Elbrecht wrote:
Eric Keller wrote:

My first post to this group so please forgive me if this has been
asked and answered.

I plan on burying my downspouts and having them merge into one 4"
drain pipe. The discharge will be at a nice point far from my house.
The length will be about 200 ft from the first downspout to the
discharge. There will be a total of 4 downspouts merging into the same
line.

My question is: How many downspouts can I run into a single 4" PVC
pipe within the 200 ft length? I live near Chicago and we get plenty
of rain.

And ice. * *I suspect a 4" pipe will freeze up a week after the first
snow and not thaw until April.

IMO- you need to go either with at least a 8" pipe or use shallow
ditches to prevent freezing. * The number of downspouts doesn't
matter-- the surface area that you're draining does.

I've got a 12" culvert that takes the water from one side of a 2-car
garage. * It has a smooth bottom is well pitched and is on the south
side of the garage-- but it gets 1/2 full of ice sometimes. * * I'm
glad I didn't use 6" pipe.

Jim

Gonna be fun getting a leaf dam out of that 200' drain line, once a twig
gets crossways in the pipe, and jams in a seam at the 100' mark.

If you MUST take your downspouts below ground (and it is seldom a good
idea, IMHO), run them into a collector box, with the outlet pipe halfway
up one side. *Make sure the lid is something you can lift off by
yourself, and that you can reach down far enough to clean out the box
once a year or so. Your local concrete flatwork company will have all
the bits you need- this is standard commercial/parking lot stuff.

The traditional method of proper pitch to the finish grade near the
house, and splash blocks, works much better IMHO, and is a lot cheaper
and easier to take care of. At least you are running them away from the
house- idiot previous owner here ran them straight down to the
(basically dead) foundation drains. Guess where the water ended up? I
sawed those off and added elbows before I even closed on the place. My
sister& BIL's place had a buried drain, and the PO either didn't know
how to slope a drain line, or the ground heaved. One failed joint right
below the downspout, and it all ended up in the paneled basement,
starting high on the wall. (It gave my sister, a world-class SWMBO, an
excuse to make him gut and remodel the basement the way she wanted it....)

--
aem sends...

aem,

Good point about the distance. I was concerned about that so I am
planning a having few cleanouts. I also plan to splice in a "tee" into
each downspout before they go under ground. That way if the system
backs up or gets clogged, water that backs up the system will flow out
the tee in the down spout. Plus I'm using pvc and not corrugated pipe
so I can run a snake if needed. Less chance for that twig to get
caught too.

My yard gets very wet and the drainage is not the best. Any water in
my yard goes to my basement and my sump pump runs about every 3
minutes certain times of the year. I'm also planning a french drain to
divert the underground water which is a bigger problem. So I think
this is the best thing.

Regarding the collector box you mentioned. I like that idea. Can you
point me to a website? I did a search but couldn't find anything. Is
there another term to use? I tried "collector box" and "filter box"
without much luck.

Thanks.

I whole-heartedly agree with aem as far as NOT taking the output from
your downspouts below ground.

I'm in east central Iowa -- climate similar to the Chicago area. In
winter, the snow melt and/or freezing rain will not run through the pipe
fast enough to avoid freezing in a shallow 200 ft. line, even a 4" PVC,
especially in a winter like we've had this year. The ice will accumulate
and block the line. I doubt any number of cleanouts will enable you to
clear that line once it's blocked.

If you MUST proceed with your plan to route the downspouts underground,
in winter you could use the cleanouts to dump deicer (calcium chloride
pellets) into the line to PREVENT a freeze-up. This winter -- with heavy
snow and freezing rain and many deep-freeze/melt cycles -- that's what I
did with my sump pump discharge line, a 1.5" PVC feeding into a
dedicated 60 ft. 3" PVC exterior drain line. I have a cleanout (one leg
of a "Y" fitting) where the sump discharge exits the house and enters
the 3" PVC line; the discharge immediately flows through deicer dumped
into the cleanout and carries the pellets down the line. It worked well
but it was a bit of a PITA keeping a good supply of deicer in the line
at all times and that was with only a 60 ft line that served only the
sump discharge.

HTH. Good luck.

Thanks. I think you missed the part of me placing tees in the
downspouts to deal with just that. BTW, good idea on he salt.