Are you a DIYer looking to bury downspouts away from the house?
Here are the materials you’ll need to do it right the first time!
- Solid Corrugated Drainage Pipe
- Knife Cut Corrugated Drainage Pipe
- Catch Basin Drain
- External snap coupler
- FDM 200 year tape
- Pop up emitter
- downspout cleanout box
- 12 inch Round Turf Restrictor Plate
Start with the Right Drain Pipe
A homeowner bought these extensions from a big box store. This is the absolute worst material on the planet and it’s super cheap. The sun dries it out, it just cracks, and you can just see how brittle it is.
When you look at this, you can see just how deep the valleys are and how high the ridges are. It’s exaggerated. What you end up with are these very deep ridges and valleys. So when you have these high spots inside the pipe, of course, debris like shingle gravel is going to get caught inside this.
Baughman Tile is making this new heavy duty commercial solid, high octane armor pipe. This is brand new and it’s thicker than any other pipe ever before it. It’s never going to crack, and it has very soft, low rounded ridges, the water flows that over this just has this rippling effect, it causes this turbulence. That’s why this pipe is self-cleaning.
Also, don’t use black recycled drain pipe. Any pipe that’s black is recycled material and it’s going to split on you. It’s going to crack and especially in the north where we freeze up and the water expands the pipe. This blue pipe is virgin material, it’s going to expand with the freeze up and it will not split. It’s rated for 200 to 500 years.
Solid Corrugated Pipe for Downspout Drainage (Not Perforated)
For a roof runoff system, or buried downspouts, you will need to use solid corrugated pipe, not perforated pipe. This is very important. Perforated pipe, on the other hand is used for French Drains.
Shop Solid Corrugated Pipe for Downspouts
Knife Cut Drainage Pipe
Then at the end of your solid pipe you can add some knife cut drainage pipe. Knife cut is where there’s no material removed like perforated, but there’s just a line of slices cut in it. The idea behind using knife cut is that if there’s any water in the pop up, we want to put about four feet of this pipe at the end of our downspout runs.
External Coupler
You can connect the solid pipe to the knife cut using an external coupler. You snap that on the outside of the pipe, it does not go inside of the pipe. An internal coupler is used for perforated pipe. Since we’re using solid you’ll need an external coupler.
Use a WYE to Connect Downspouts When Possible
If you’re connecting two downspouts from the house to one pipe, I encourage using a WYE instead of a T because it’s going to keep with the direction of water flow. A T is just going to slam the water to come to a stop. Then the water will have to redirect itself and you’re going to lose all of that velocity.
When water comes off the roof of a home or a commercial building. It is gravity powered. And when it falls off the roof, it picks up speed. There’s a lot of energy and a lot of pounds per square inch PSI. So you want that to just keep pushing its way through the drainage system. It helps keep the system clean too. So when you just slam it into a T that’s a problem.
Distribution Box (D-Box)
A distribution box (sometimes called D-Box ) hooks up to the drainage pipe and catches all the shingle gravel that’s coming off the roof. Basically everything that’s too heavy to make it all the way to the very end of the line is going to lose its momentum and it’s going to fall into the D-box.
Pop Up Emitter with a Large Outlet
When you have organic material from the trees that ends up in your roof runoff system it’ll just fall into the D box. If it’s a real old branch and it’s rotted it’ll just float right out of the pop up. Notice that our pop ups have a big mouth on them. That’s by design, we have the largest outlet of any pop up on the market.
This is so big chunks of wood can pass through it. Big giant leaves like maple trees, things like that can just pass right through that big opening. So we’re doing everything we possibly can to put ourselves in a situation where we’re going to be able to succeed. When it comes to the four seasons in the north, the freeze and thaw, we’re giving ourselves a fighting chance in every way. And you know, leaves are always a problem trees or something you’re always battling.
Turf Restrictor Plate
The most important part of your discharge system is having a turf restrictor plate. Grass grows over pop ups and they don’t work once they can’t daylight and once the water can’t find its way out. Then it’s going to cascade and pour at the foundation of the house. This is the leading cause of flooding in the basement.
Materials Needed to Bury Downspouts in All in One Kit
Instead of purchasing these products one by one and running to different plumbing and hardware stores you could just purchase one of out all in one downspout kits.
These kits make it easy for the DIYer by providing them with everything they need for their drainage project!
