Last week or so I posted a question about which type of PVC I should use to bury my downspouts. A lot of you are nice enough to reach out and help me. I apologize but I have another question. Should I lay the PVC in a bed of stone, pea gravel right in the dirt or????? This will not be buried below the frost line and I am in aWI. Like I mentioned in my other post, I always overthink projects like this. Thank you in advance, it is appreciated
Should I bury my PVC downspouts in stone dirt or???
- Thread starter mc1984ss
- Start date
back fill with the dirt you dug out & call it done
larry4406
Well-known member
Bury the piping in your native soils and monitor your pitch at 1/4" per foot.
If grade permits, we slice the discharge end at 45 degrees to try to blend it in with the yard for a daylit end.
Our house types use 6" gutters with 4x3" downspouts. We use 3" SCH40 PVC for up to 2 combined spout connections. When the run is piped to add in the flow from a 3rd or more downspout, we transition to 4" pipe before the 3rd or more spout joins the run.
Where the spout connects to the PVC rain leader, we are required to provide a method for overland relief. We do this by installing a wye with a bug screen. Should the rain leader become blocked or overwhelmed, it can discharge out the wye and run across the ground like it would without the piping.
Sometimes when the grade is not conducive to a baloney sliced end for daylight discharge, we use a pop-up drain with a small gravel drywell below it. In this picture below, you can see the rain leaders left and right of the stoop with the screen for overland relief. In the yard, you can see the green pop-up drains with the pit below which will be filled with gravel to the bottom of the popup elbow. We use NDS Pop-Up Emitter. There is a 3rd pop-up on the left which corresponds to the sump pump discharge under the window.
The pop-up has a small ~1/4" diameter weep hole at the bottom which allows it to fully empty. During rain event, the water flow pushes up the center disk allowing the water to then run along the surface.
We sometimes also use a leaf catcher arrangement at the connection to the downspout. These get used when the site plan requires us to discharge into large underground dissipation systems (drywells, Storm Tech Systems, etc) that are cost prohibitive to repair should they get plugged with organics.
If grade permits, we slice the discharge end at 45 degrees to try to blend it in with the yard for a daylit end.
Our house types use 6" gutters with 4x3" downspouts. We use 3" SCH40 PVC for up to 2 combined spout connections. When the run is piped to add in the flow from a 3rd or more downspout, we transition to 4" pipe before the 3rd or more spout joins the run.
Where the spout connects to the PVC rain leader, we are required to provide a method for overland relief. We do this by installing a wye with a bug screen. Should the rain leader become blocked or overwhelmed, it can discharge out the wye and run across the ground like it would without the piping.
Sometimes when the grade is not conducive to a baloney sliced end for daylight discharge, we use a pop-up drain with a small gravel drywell below it. In this picture below, you can see the rain leaders left and right of the stoop with the screen for overland relief. In the yard, you can see the green pop-up drains with the pit below which will be filled with gravel to the bottom of the popup elbow. We use NDS Pop-Up Emitter. There is a 3rd pop-up on the left which corresponds to the sump pump discharge under the window.
The pop-up has a small ~1/4" diameter weep hole at the bottom which allows it to fully empty. During rain event, the water flow pushes up the center disk allowing the water to then run along the surface.
We sometimes also use a leaf catcher arrangement at the connection to the downspout. These get used when the site plan requires us to discharge into large underground dissipation systems (drywells, Storm Tech Systems, etc) that are cost prohibitive to repair should they get plugged with organics.
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I was going to ask if these are going to be daylighted but, damn, Larry hit it pretty good.
75gmck25
Well-known member
I've seem some pipe in the area where they cut the end at a diagonal, and they had a green plastic end screen that was oval-shape so it fit into a 4" pipe, and blended into the grass. The end pieces appear to be something you can buy off-the-shelf, but I've not seen them in the local stores.