Look at the picture of the downspout. Seems to me that even in Minnesota, for almost a million dollars, the downspout should go underground and come out somewhere else.
We had a pretty nice home where I lived my first 10 years, and its downspouts drained underground all the way to the street. If that house were now where property values had not slumped (because the town's population dropped over 50%), it would still be no more than 300,000 I think. Yet this almost one million dollar place drains the water onto the sidewalk?
The problem is that unless there is a lot of grade and somewhere for the water to then exit, there is no place for it to come out somewhere else. You can try to use a drywell, but they bring their own problems. In that photo one choice might have been to design the gutters differently so that the water exited at the other end, which might have been better. I see similar to what he's showing in new construction here in NJ on $1mil homes. Clearly it's missing at the very least a splash block too.
I'd love to hear him explain how this would have been solved for $5 in materials. It's not a materials problem, it's an overall grading relationship to the driveway, sidewalk, house, etc. He talks about a yard drain, but that only works if the grading is there to support it and many lots don't have the grade. If you look at his photo, if you ran a 4" pipe under the sidewalk, then what? Now you have a pipe that is ~8" below grade. With most lots, no place to go with that to bring it out someplace acceptable back above ground. IMO, some of what he thinks are good ideas suck too. First pic here for example, where they have ugly leaders run on top of the ground everywhere:
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That's nice if the grade allows it and it's permitted. With runoff laws that exist today in many places, it's not allowed. If everyone sent water out to the streets that should remain on site, it just adds to the overall storm water management problems.
If that house
I agree the whole thing should have been designed to avoid that, but it's typically not a $5 problem and takes planning at the project level with regard to grading, where the sidewalks go, distance between the sidewalk and house, etc.
I took that to mean that this was a situation where all that was needed to get proper drainage was a little foresight and common sense aided with a section of yard drain and the slotted drain cover. New construction routinely grades the lot to slope away from the foundation (at least hereabouts, which is where the home in question is located). If that was the case, then yes, all that was needed was to run the pipe down to where it will just peek out at ground level several feet further away from the house. *Then* pour the sidewalk over it.
That's the setup I installed at my home. The outlets are halfway to the street, where the slope permits them to be just about at ground level. The last half of the run consists of perforated drain pipe, so the water can seep out and any excess can pour out the end and down the rest of the lawn.
My next door neighbor lady had the very problem shown in the photo, so when her son-in-law replaced her sidewalk I talked to him about it and showed him how I'd dealt with it. There's a steep bank about twenty feet away from the sidewalk, so all he needed to do was slope the drain pipe to the bank and let it discharge down the embankment. Idiot couldn't be bothered to trench that far, nor to use perforated pipe for the last half of the run. Instead, he just found about eight feet of drain pipe in a dumpster, dug a short sloped trench and installed the drain pipe, then poured the sidewalk. No dry well, no outlet, nothing to aid drainage and prevent a backup of water. Result: total fail. She's back to using a metal downspout across her new sidewalk because her son-in-law couldn't be bothered to do it right.
What happens in winter when the slotted drain cover and the box below that's out in the lawn are full of frozen water? I saw this tried at a condo and it failed miserably for that reason.
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When the top of the pipe is 4"+ below the bottom of the sidewalk, it's almost impossible to get it to come back out in the lawn, while maintaining a constant slope, unless there is a substantial grade, more grade than is typical. And if you make a U of it with a low spot, then you get debris, leaves, etc that tend to clog it, plus freezing since it's only 8" deep.
I agree that's a great solution, where you can do it. I'd use perf pipe as soon as I got about 8 ft from the house. Which is why more planning should go into the overall design of everything related to it. In some cases, you have a big enough planting area between the house and sidewalk and can get rid of the water there with perf pipe hidden by shrubs. Not as good as taking it even further away, but it's better thand dumping it on the sidewalk.
In million dollar houses here, typically some of it is done perfectly, eg with an underground corrugated pipe that takes it to a swale, much lower grade, etc. You have some spots where the planting beds are large enough that you can use perf pipe to get rid of it there. And then you have something dumb, like in the cited pic. A friend's house has one spot that is very much like that in this pic, ie right at the intersection of the sidewalk, and drivway pavement by the garage. On the other corner of the garage, they dump the water right out onto the driveway where it meets the garage. It flows OK, so not a major problem. But 30 ft away is a sharp drop off and all they had to do was run an underground pipe over there, getting all that water totally away from the driveway/garage area. The real problem here is that this is an afterthought and not accounted for upfront. Some codes related to this would be a good idea. To me, what's shown in that photo is a danger in freezing condition, as it's an ice generator for the sidewalk.
Instead, he just found about eight feet
When I was living in a new construction condo, I discovered that my sump pump line went no where. Like you describe, it had been run out past the sidewalk and just ended a foot down in the dirt. Probably because they intended to run it further, another 25 ft, to a swale, maybe after grading was done, etc, but it never got done.
So, I discover that not only was mine like that but right next to it was the line from the condo next door. So, I show it to the neighbor and told him that he should make the condo assoc aware of it, since when they were fixing mine, it would be trivial to do his at the same time. He says, "Isn't it supposed to be that way?" Despite my explaining that the water has no place to go and it need to be routed just 25 ft over to the swale, he just couldn't get it. He did nothing. I always wondered what finally happened there.
She's back to using a metal downspout across her new sidewalk
I hate seeing those run around shrub beds, extended out
10 ft from the house, etc. They look like hell. And I bet if someone trips over it, they have a good case because no one expects an obstacle like that across a sidewalk.
Indeed, about 3/4s of the way to the street, our house had a 3 or 4 foot hill, going down, so the street gutter was 3 or 4 feet below ground level at the house itself.
Next time I'm there, I'll look at the houses across the street, which had flat front and back yards, no hill at all, and were a little smaller and cheaper for that matter, and see what goes on with their downspouts.
I've also wondered what happened to the downspouts in the back of my house. I surely never saw a splash block when I lived in my home town, so I guess there was a drain pipe from the back of the house around the house to the street in front.
I don't think I ever saw a splash block at my house in Indianapolis either, where the land was Indiana flat and the culvert next to the road was 125 feet from the front of the house, but maybe there was no drain pipe either, just a downspout that ran onto the grass. IIRC, the trees are too big now, or one just can't get close enough, to see anything with google satellite. The next occasion to go there would be my high school reunion, in June.
None of these houses ever cost anywhere near a million dollars.
Here in Naperville, IL, there is an ordinance that any time there is new co nstruction, it must not increase the stormwater runoff any more or any fast er than before the construction was started. This leads to setting up drai nage/ storage areas on new developed property. For the rebuilding of McMan sions, where the new footprint is much larger than the original footprint, those sites must also limit the runoff to what was there before the rebuidi ng occurred. This must be shown on all plans before building permits are i ssued.
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