Drain Pipe Burial

I'm going to install plastic piping to route the water from the gutter down spouts out to the street, to stop errosion problems.

How deep do I need to bury these pipes? I live on Long Island in NY so we do freeze in the winter. Do I need to get below the frost line?

Bernie

Reply to
Alt.Home.Repair
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If the pipe is pitched properly, it shouldn't freeze as there will never be water in it save when it is actually raining. However is it legal to dump downspout water into a storm sewer? You may be required to do something else, like a dry well.

nate

Reply to
Nate Nagel

Unless you live on a hill, if you get below frostline, you will end up BELOW the street. If you were thinking of tying into the storm sewers, most places call that illegal.

Not a fan of buried downspout drains- they always clog up eventually, with leaves or dead animals or whatever. If you simply must do it, and if your lot is sloped enough, you want a 'daylight drain' where the pipes come out some place where you can run a roto-rooter back upstream when needed. Whatever you do, make sure they can't back up or leak along the foundation wall- the water will end up in the basement. Seen it over and over- poorly sealed joint or pipe broken from frost heave, and a musty smell in basement right below, or even a full-blown case of mold.

I'd try extra-long diverter pipes and long splash blocks first, even if you have to pick them up every time you mow the grass. Maybe even those roll-up things that unroll themselves when downspout gets full of water, if anybody still sells those. Look hard at the yard landscaping- can you alter the slope within about ten feet of the house? You want 8-10 inches of foundation showing above grade line, and you never want to pile dirt against unsealed foundation, but there is sometimes room to add some slope so the water runs away from the house harmlessly.

Reply to
aemeijers

What he said-- I'd go with a paved swale, if it was really that serious a problem. Chances are, just some creative landscaping will divert the water into no problem for less work and better results than an underground pipe.

Jim

Reply to
Jim Elbrecht

After agreeing with aem, I had some second thoughts. If you go from 4-6" gutters to an underground 'pipe' that is 12-15", then you just need to bury it deep enough to pitch off towards the street. [you need to check local ordinances to see if you can do that-- and if you can dig over 1' deep on your lawn without a permit and survey]

I have one of those 20' long at the end of one of my garage gutters & it has worked fine for 10yrs or so. I'm a few hours north of you.

That's the *only* way I'd try to divert gutters underground.

Jim

Reply to
Jim Elbrecht

4 inch smooth drain lines work fine if going to daylight, use 2 22 degree elbows at house so downspout to line isnt a restriction.

avoid the black plastic corrugated lines, the bumbs accumulate debris.

leave easy access and flush lines yearly with a garden hose. if necessary push garden hose thru underground line.

provided theres enough slope you dont need the line below the frost line.

if your local government requires a dry well it will clog with debris eventually:( run a overflow line to street think daylight

Reply to
bob haller

I suppose this is a local issue but every place I have lived would let you put rain water in a storm drain. It was the sanitary sewers that they were particular with since they had to treat this water. They also did not want gray water or waste water in the storm drains since they dumped directly into water ways. (an NPDES problem)

Reply to
gfretwell

"Alt.Home.Repair" wrote in news:4d7ce98f$0$32301$ snipped-for-privacy@cv.net:

Here in North Jersey there are plenty of homes with sump pumps that discharge through a 3-4" PVC pipe pitched just enough to reach in a straight line to the curb. Usually buried just beneath the landscaping. Must be legal, at least here in the country of the high priests of administratium.

Reply to
Han

I'm also on LI. Most municipalities in our neck of the woods prohibit dumping of rain water roof runoff into the street. The Town of North Hempstead, for one, requires building permit applications to show the runoff volume calculations on the drawings and require the installation of a drywell that can accept that amount of runoff.

Depending on where you are, what you are proposing might or might not be a problem for you, but I have noticed that the water district and roads departments around here have become more aware of such things and won't have a problem telling you to fix the situation.

R
Reply to
RicodJour

-snip-

4" will work fine in the summer. But it will freeze solid during the first slow thaw. My downspouts freeze if it is cold enough and sunny enough. A 4" in the ground doesn't have a chance.

Jim

Reply to
Jim Elbrecht

Some of the answer depends on slope. We have three buried drains at our two year old house: one installed by gutter contractor and the others by me. Installation method and pipe size depend on the length of the run.

The gutter contractor basically routed one under a sidewalk. It is about 10' long, it is buried about 18" deep and comes back up to the surface with a pop-up. it uses standard 4" PVC drain pipe (lighter than residential plumbing). On the end with the popup, the contractor dug out about a 2' radius around and beneath the elbow (beneath the popup). This area was filled with clean, 1" and larger gravel, and he drilled three 3/8" holes in the bottom of the pipe. The grade between the drain entry and popup end is very slight but it seems to work well. The only issue has been getting grass growing around the popup and I finally ringed the fitting with slab sandstone and seeded around and between the stones. For information, we live in SE Kansas where winter sub-freezing is common and sub-zero does happen. We also live in a small, rural community without municipal drain restrictions.

The north side of our lot drops 7 feet in about 80 feet so we fought rutting. We had problems getting grass going near the house so I buried the two drains on that side of the house. Both are about 20' long and they slope about 12" which provides good flow. Each of these drains serve 4" x 3" downspouts. Since I had to pull a travel trailer across one run, I used heavier 4" residential PVC. The runs couldn't be more simple. At the downspout I used a standard 4" coupler which allows the pipe to enter easily. At the foundation I buried about 12"

- 15" deep and installed an elbow, and then dug the trench to allow the 18" slope (not a lot of digging because of the slope). With this slope, I have no freezing concerns and I can easily poke a hose in the open end if it ever gets plugged up (it hasn't yet). Also, on the open end, I buried a standard concrete downspout slash block.... the kind that is open on one end and ridged at the other end. I buried i just below the pipe outlet WITH THE RIDGE FARTHEST FROM THE OUTLET. This allows water to flow out of the pipe and sheet around the ridge, reducing erosion. Yes you will have water standing in the splash block but it evaporates. I also buried the splash block so the top is at grade and I can drive the mower across it without problem. If you have longer runs, you might want to consider larger pipe.

Worked for me. Your case might be different. And yes it does rain here. We get 40+" per year and it is not unheard of to get 10% of that in 1-2 hours of spring or fall rain.

RonB

Reply to
RonB

Correction; ".....to allow the 12" slope..."

Reply to
RonB

I'm also on LI. Most municipalities in our neck of the woods prohibit dumping of rain water roof runoff into the street. The Town of North Hempstead, for one, requires building permit applications to show the runoff volume calculations on the drawings and require the installation of a drywell that can accept that amount of runoff.

Depending on where you are, what you are proposing might or might not be a problem for you, but I have noticed that the water district and roads departments around here have become more aware of such things and won't have a problem telling you to fix the situation.

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I've noticed our local government is on a citation rampage to make up for the shortfall in property tax revenue. They send inspectors around every day looking for violations to write up and I suppose hoping they aren't fixed in time to avoid a fine.

-- Bobby G.

Reply to
Robert Green

My guess is that in highly developed areas like Hempstead, LI they've already seen the storm drain system (probably 50yrs old) overflow. I know we're subject to the same sorts of restrictions near Wash. DC because a neighbor was forced to dig a drywell and disconnect the line he had run to the street to handle roof runoff.

We live in an area that used to be a natural spring and is the lowest elevation for at least half a mile. The park behind us turns into a lake during the recent three (alleged) 100 year storms we've had and we've had to install two sump pumps to handle the really serious multi-inch per day rain. The pumps just run and run because the water pours in from the streets uphill from us. I've seen runoff accumulate so quickly that it rose to the level of car hoods after a really profound deluge (quite a sight to see the main road running like a river!). That actually doesn't cause the severe flooding. It's once that stuff has poured in the storm drains that the trouble begins.

-- Bobby G.

Reply to
Robert Green

"Robert Green" wrote in news:iljmg4$qbo$ snipped-for-privacy@news.eternal-september.org:

We left Floral Park NY and moved closer to my daughter in Jersey. Believe me, Fair Lawn NJ is just as built-up as Floral Park. Here the problem is also high ground water levels, since there is (in a figure of speech) only 7/32" of soil on top of the bedrock, and the groundwater flows over that into your basement. Somehow we are lucky and don't need a sump pump, but we did install French drains and a "dry well" when we remodeled 10 years ago.

Reply to
Han

s.eternal-september.org:

When we lived in central NJ, in Little SIlver, about 1/2 mile from the NJ Bay, we could tell when there was an exceptionally high tide because the underground water table would rise since it could not run off as rapidly. Our sump pump ran almost continually. Next town over, Fair haven was equally at risk.> Up in Fair Lanwn, there is no Atlantic Ocean effects, just rivers that collect surface runoff and flood.

There is one thing that every place we have lived has in common. There is a 100-year rain storm at least once every 10 years. I have never figured that one out.

Reply to
hrhofmann

Could never do a Dry Well here where I live, we have a high ground water, any hole deeper than 2 feet will fill with water in the springtime, so any dry well will become a wet well with no room for runoff. My sump pump and roof all drain into a culvert that runs to the street ditch. I have done it for over 30 years and other houses have done it for years longer. Town doesn't care, in fact they said that if/when they install storm drains, they will divert my culvert drain into their storm drain to remove the excess water.

Reply to
EXT

I live on a hill. My front yard is pitched at about 15 deg. That's the cause of the errosion. On one side of the house I have room to move the water to another location and either dump it on the lawn or into a dry well. The other side there is much less space to the neighbor and I would not be able to sink a drywell without part of it being in his yard.

Bernie

Reply to
Bernie Hunt

Bob,

I'm in Garden City so I have both village and town to keep happy. Right now the village is extremely concerned over ground water contamination. The last time I asked the village engineering department, they wanted me to dump the water into the storm drains rather than into the ground. I'm heading down there to get some other permit information, I'll ask them again about where I can dump the rain water.

Bernie

Reply to
Bernie Hunt

I have plenty of slope so there shouldn't be any standing water in the line. The current plan is to have pop up emitters at the street for discharge. If that get's nixed then I'll have them pop up in the yard some where.

Bernie

4 inch smooth drain lines work fine if going to daylight, use 2 22 degree elbows at house so downspout to line isnt a restriction.

avoid the black plastic corrugated lines, the bumbs accumulate debris.

leave easy access and flush lines yearly with a garden hose. if necessary push garden hose thru underground line.

provided theres enough slope you dont need the line below the frost line.

if your local government requires a dry well it will clog with debris eventually:( run a overflow line to street think daylight

Reply to
Bernie Hunt

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