Rain gutter drainage - how?

The previous owner of my house took all of the rain gutters, ran them into a 3" pipe, ran the pipe 10 feet away from the house and dumped it into a 3 foot deep hole full of rocks. He put a piece of plastic over the rocks, and covered it with dirt. The only way I found it was that the plastic was keeping water from draining and the grass above it was turning yellow - otherwise I would have to dig up 100' of pipe hoping to find where it drained to.
Is the a good way to drain rain gutters? The water table here is only 20 feet down, and if we get a lot of rain my basement starts to take on water (I found this out the hard way - my basement was a foot deep in water before I noticed lol). Dumping all of ths water 10 feet from the house just doesn't seem like a good idea.

"Zootal" <nousenetspam at dead ice dot us> wrote in message
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Its a good idea for a few years but those seepage pits tend to silt up and become ineffective after a time.
You could put a diverter in so that when the rain is heavy, it runs over the surface and is drained into a larger area of your yard.
As for 10 feet, I don't know where else you have to choose from, you can't drain it onto your neighbors property but you probably can drain onto the street if that is nearby.
You may need to dig up some of the pipe and the drain pit to get it to absorb what you need and replace or clean the drain rock of silt. Replace some of the solid pipe with drain pipe in a bed of drain rock.

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In this case, it lasted a few years and the pipe end itself because plugged with roots and silt. The pit itself was quite clear of silt, the rocks were clean. I discovered that the city recommends (requires) that you divert rain water runoff to the street or into the storm drainage system. In my case, I have to run a pipe to the curb, and then *through* the curb so that it drains into the street. I can't run the water down my driveway to the street because the driveway has sunk so that all water from it drains into the front yard - which has also sunken. Another source of water into the ground right next to my basement :(

"Zootal" <nousenetspam at dead ice dot us> wrote:
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Putting a cover plate right at the edge of where the village has rights for sidewalks, curbs, pipes and such, works well.
With the piping in a "U" shape, the level of the water will match, so as long as the right side of the arm is lower than the left, assuming it doesn't drain away along the way.
My folks had these on either side of the house, taking gutters from the neighbors as well as us. The lawn sloped slightly down to the street so it worked real well. In a heavy storm there would be a gusher of water coming out of the lower grate, which would run onto the sidewalk and street. Works great.

I agree. This well they dug could be sending water into your basement in heavy rain. Try to send water a good deal further, downhill, and you may need to do some grading of land around house, ie to slope it away from house. Check in heavy rain to see if there is much leakage where gutters enter pipe.

Zootal wrote:
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It is called a dry well and how well it works and where it should be placed depends on the local soil conditions. Done right it is the preferred method, but it is not always done right and in some areas there is no "right" way of doing it.

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We installed 4" lines for the gutters, and another 4" line for the foundation drains.
Ours run about 30' out away from the house, and discharge over the side of the hill (where surface water would have run anyway). We have small grates at the ends of the pipe to keep critters out of the pipes, but we do have to clear out pine needles and whatnot every few months or so.
Of course, you need someplace lower than your house to drain to for this to work.
Anthony