Repair Underground Downspout - Use T Fitting for Drainage, Not Elbow

hi I'm Blair Gilbert here for Mr hardware and Gilbert's Pro Hardware in St Clair Shores we are here to talk about underground downspout failure see that this pipe is full of water here's the situation where this unit this kind of complex had a downspout was dumping on the ground and the water would puddle in this concrete you see all this concrete is all sagged big deep cracks and so it's settled down here it settled because all the water that flooded in this corner went down to the drain tile went to the sump pump and each year so many pounds of soil went with all that water and it undermined this concrete hence the concrete Has Fallen in a mediocre attempt at repairing this the association has hired some mediocre landscapers they've taken the downspout they buried a four inch PVC out in the lawn but what they neglected to do was they direct connected the downspout where there's trees in this area all the crumb that comes off the roof goes down this pipe travels Underground to where these folks put in a pop-up but what has happened is this homeowner has is attempting to free all the this is all the crumb that comes off the roof maple leaves and I already prayed this loose once this is a pop-up it looks like a great idea it's not so great this is a a pretty poor ant a semi-expensive evacuation system for the water because it's all done by gravity this has to be lower than that pipe for the water to come out that's natural it's easy but what we like to do is we like to put a t here the T then can be in the ground at any particular height so that when the water drains from the house to the T the pipe is always in a downhill angle at the bottom of the tee we put a post hole full of pea stone that allows the system to continually drain itself even if it takes a couple days so it won't hold water for very long so when this flows water out in the ground in a strainer then the system will drain and again in the winter time January when there's a freeze saw sequence this won't freeze and break the pipe the other nice thing with the tea is the strainer lifts off a little easier these lock in the strainer just slips right off you can put your hand in because some stuff still makes it to the strainer but this system is going to go bad very quickly once this pipe if no one maintains this this pipe fills up with all these leaves in this crumb it's going to rot it's going to impact the pipe water is going to overflow out the house more water in the ground more cement sagging so this is really a poor design it's too bad it looks good on on the Shelf at the store but in reality our goal is to get water away from the house filter we're taking a look at what happened to this pop-up in this elbow and we're going to show you how nice we can change this into a tee I'm going to take a look in here when I see that this pipe is full of water did it move look like it moved didn't move he didn't so here see how much water is in here and we're going to do is we're going to take a post hole down here so underneath this fitting I take out this elbow we're going to put a French drain below this so we're going to take what was a good system and we're making it into a great system put it right you couldn't put it in close to that sprinkler line huh we have about a two foot deep hole at the end of this underground downspout what we're going to do in lieu of that pop-up this 90 this pop-up 90. they put a little slot in the bottom to drain it it's not enough it's so easily clogged with a couple of leaves and a little bit of dirt you saw this was holding water to what we do is we put in a t upside down when you put the tan upside down we're going to take and bring a piece of PVC up to the top of the earth we're going to put a green strainer in it so it Blends in with the grass and we're going to fill this with P Stone what that's going to do for us that P stone is going to act like a French drain so as water builds up in here now we've created a conductor so it's water to go down in the P Stone and it can Wick into the Earth and this will Auto drain so this won't hold water in the winter time when we have a freeze thaw sequence where it's warm into January and snow melts off the roof and comes down here we want it to be able to dissipate in the ground and that keep our system from freezing make sure you cut up the part where I'm struggling here I'm going to shift this thing over the side a little bit okay we've finessed in the tea we have our two foot deep post hole down below now here's what's going to make our pipe Auto drain in the winter time and a lot of times I'll pour it in right through the center of the tee so here we have it of course we had to dodge a sprinkler line if you notice this going on by we put in our P Stone we got it right up to the bottom of the tee so now any excess water that doesn't come out the strainer out on the lawn will eventually go into the P Stone when it rains and all the rain water comes in here it's going to saturate this pea Stone typically in just a couple of minutes during a rainstorm then the water is going to come out the top of this tee because this location is lower than where the water is being Inlet down at the end and so what will happen as water will come out on the lawn here for a long time and one it's easy to clean I can put my hand in here I can reach down and if I get leaves or accumulation of crud it's easy to clean instead of this being holding water this will eventually drain into this ground this Stone will help accumulate all of our excess water and drain it in the earth so our system will go dry within hours typically after every rainfall this will make this system last a lot longer and be much more maintenance free than using an elbow like this that never drains this strainer needs to fit inside a piece of pipe then inside the tee foreign and throw it in there and take a garden hose and it soak in here's our downspout Inlet into the system direct connected typical what we want to do is we're going to cut the PVC we're going to put a strainer in here so now when leaves come off the roof they're going to Splash Away and only water is going to go up to our system keep our system much more maintenance free as I've said before I've got a few of these that are 15 years old and I just have to keep cleaning the crumb out of them about every four or five years if I don't have this I better clean the crumb out every year so it's just a better way to have a little filter this is this the S35 pipe which is a little sticker ID than the thin wall stuff today normally use immediate a rasp [Music] there we go good so now the second thing we want to achieve is we do not want this pipe right up against this grade or the leaves will accumulate and get trapped so I like to cut an angle on the downspout so as it lays up against the debris filter the leaves have enough room to evacuate and drain away so now we're going to shorten up the downspout now as leaves and crumb along with all the water come down the downspout leaves have plenty of room to evacuate the water 95 percent of the water will go down our drain and go out in the lawn no more water at the basement this is the way to keep your basement dry just make sure when the water comes out out on the lawn your lawn is pitching downhill that water can't roll back to the house and cause more wet basements so it's all about water management and having grade so water drains away so when it rains your basement stays dry

Channel: Mr. Hardware

Views: 402,538

Keywords: water in underground downspout, underground downspout drainage, gutter downspout drainage, downspout drainage, downspout pop up drain, french drain, lawn pop-up, downspout drainage ideas, gutter drainage underground, gutter drainage solutions, downspout drain, pop up drain, yard drain, yard drainage solutions, yard drainage, gutter downspout drainage solutions, downspout drainage system

Id: UW7waK-j5Kc

Length: 9min 54sec (594 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 06 2016