Gutter
My roof of ~1200sqft pitches to the rear corner, pours into the downspout of ~25ft and feeds into the main line of the house and on to the street. I’d like to divert the spout to run along the side of the house and feed a few rain barrels and dry wells in the front for my spectacularly lush front yard garden. I plan to use closed down spouts, as opposed to open gutters, along the side at 1/2”/10’ slope for ~60ft. Any particular caution I should be aware of?
workisfun
in General Discussion 3 years and 10 months ago
16
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16 replies
MDR | 3 years and 9 months ago
Don’t ever drain onto the sidewalk! My neighbor did that and it frequently creates sheets of ice in the winter. They have to go out there salting and chopping at it to try to get rid of the slipping hazard.
markwalker | 3 years and 9 months ago
Beg your pardon but it sounds like a huge amount of trouble for a garden, as lovely as it might be .
I know… rainwater etc etc. — I am sympathetic we have 2 barrels out back. We have a sump pump for heavy rains — never had to use it. . But we had the plumber put a hose bib in the front of the basement for the front yard and street tree and are done with it.
workisfun | 3 years and 9 months ago
A couple weeks ago, we backed up, flooding the pit, and coming within a hair of overflowing sewage into our living space. It was the night of one of the flash floods. Wasn’t the first time. Our system is fine under most circumstances, but when it pours that heavily and that quickly, one main line is overwhelmed. (We’re a two-family. We have a back yard, side yard, and garage that feed into the line as well). I will forego the dry well and just run the downspout along the side of the house, dive under ground in a closed pvc pipe under the front yard, and terminate the pipe into about 20 cubic ft of buried gravel that will help the water exit through the bottom of my front wall (~30” high) through discreet weep holes onto the sidewalk. All my neighbors have outright pipes sticking out of their walls. Mine will be almost invisible. Non-woven geotextile fabric and 3/4 washed gravel.
colonialrevival | 3 years and 9 months ago
A plumber like most trades people are not going to advise you to do something that they themselves don’t trust. There is nothing inherently wrong with running your leaders into the waste line, the way it was originally and the only legal way in NYC. But the plumber doesn’t know the condition of your waste lines both within your house and beyond your main trap as it exits to the sewer. If you ask them to hook it up, they do it, and then there’s tons of water coming into your house and ruining your belongings, you’re going to be upset and likely upset at them. So, they tell you just lengthen that gutter until it’s absurdly long and you’re draining somewhere else, what’s the harm? I see it all over Brooklyn, I see it at my neighbors houses, it’s absurd.
You are right to want to reinstate the old way of doing it: it doesn’t flood the basement and keeps your yard free of excess water. Just make sure you know what you’re getting into, that line was likely disconnected for a reason.
Guest User | 3 years and 9 months ago
@Cate which option has problems in a row house? Can you clarify? Thanks
cate | 3 years and 9 months ago
Patrick, that’s the standard solution for new-house construction. Everyone I know who has tried it in a Brooklyn row house has had problems. Go figure.
jasonasdcarmen | 3 years and 10 months ago
Right now, our back gutter doesn’t feed into the sewage line — It seems to have been disconnected and /or stopped up before we moved in. We get a little water in the basement during the heaviest rains, and I’ve asked a couple of plumbers and a contractor if we can re-establish the proper system. Oddly, all of them have said it’s not needed or that it’s not a good idea to put all the water back through our house on its way to the street. They suggested I just pipe the water further out into the yard.
NewOwner | 3 years and 10 months ago
Chiming in that I, too, have had a rain barrel diverting some water from our extension (maybe 250 sf?) for years with very few problems – I cut off the drain pipe about 7 feet up from the ground and installed a flexi-pipe. The rain barrel itself has an overflow pipe back to the sewer pipe. In the winter I take it down and shove the flexi-pipe back into the sewer pipe. I use that water for gardening, for rinsing things that don’t need very clean water, and for my kids to play with.
Note that when there is VERY heavy rain or if I’m out on vacation for a while, I do disconnect the rain barrel because the overflow pipe can’t handle all the excess and spills out over the edge of the barrel.
brooklyndempsey | 3 years and 10 months ago
Running the overflow down the drain pipe is a totally sensible setup—it goes to the city sewer and not your cellar.
My understanding of the original post was that the gutter was being run to a corner of the house where there was no proper drain pipe for the overflow (it was going to a dry well in the yard). This was the root of why I would be concerned about flooding.
chemosphere | 3 years and 10 months ago
I’ve had one for years in the backyard with no problems of flooding. You just need a diverter…when the barrel fills up the water goes back down into the pipe. I disconnect the barrel every winter and put it back up in the spring. If the barrel isn’t significantly off the ground it won’t create enough water pressure to really power a garden hose but it is great for filling up watering cans.
brooklyndempsey | 3 years and 10 months ago
Stainless steel screens are a common way to exclude mosquitoes. There are plenty of options but here’s an example of a purpose-built screen for storage tanks: https://www.rainharvest.com/rain-harvesting-pty-mozzie-stoppa-4.asp
As mentioned earlier this can be complex. The state of Texas publishes a pretty comprehensive guide (that also covers more complex uses) and I’d suggest reading this if you are seriously considering designing a system like this: https://www.twdb.texas.gov/publications/brochures/conservation/doc/RainwaterHarvestingManual_3rdedition.pdf
Guest User | 3 years and 10 months ago
There is ecologically safe stuff you can add to the water now that kills larvae. Agreed one shouldn’t let it sit there without planning.
JohnHancock | 3 years and 10 months ago
And if the water is collected in big barrels it stands for too long and is creating algae and breeds mosquitoes in no time
Guest User | 3 years and 10 months ago
if you do this i would suggest you figure out a way to choose to be able to decide when to divert the water out of the main gutter (using a valve) so you won’t end up with a bunch of cracked pipe in the winter
brooklyndempsey | 3 years and 10 months ago
Cate’s comments are spot on.
The amount of water you’ll collect in heavy rain on a roof that size will dwarf a few rain barrels, and you’ll need a way to handle that without flooding your cellar. I wouldn’t consider doing this unless you can drain the overflow down the house sewer line–you’ll need some place to send a thousand gallons + of water.
Also, the initial water off a roof can be dirty–there are systems called first flush diverters which dump the initial rainfall and then collect the water following this. Even if you don’t use an automatic diverter, you’ll want some manual mechanism to bypass the storage tanks.
I have a home with a rainwater collection system as its primary source of water (not in Brooklyn) and unfortunately know more about this topic than I’d like to 🙂
cate | 3 years and 10 months ago
If it ain’t broke, don’t ‘fix it. Seems like you’ll be creating a complex and unreliable system with a number of potential points of failure and potential for water to enter the house in multiple spots. Also, FWIW, everyone I know who has changed their drain to empty into their (back) yard instead of feeding into the house sewer line has created ongoing problems with flooding in the yard and basement. And in the instances when they have installed drains in the yard, the drains have become clogged.