We can tolerate eyesores when they’re excellent solutions to problems, but most downspouts don’t function so well, and some of them even create new problems. Most downspouts were installed just fine, but for a variety of reasons don’t work in your situation. Consider having Landscape Guys install underground downspouts for your existing gutter system. We’ll just need to dig a trench, hook up some piping (flex or PVC), identify the best place for the water to end up, and patch up your grass so that only you know we were ever there. The end result will be less water around your foundation, fewer puddles on your property, and zero ugly downspouts littering your landscape.
Buried downspouts have a few advantages over your standard above-ground downspouts:
1. Underground downspouts can discharge the water much farther away from your foundation – several feet away or even hundreds of feet away. Most homeowners (unwisely) have short downspouts that discharge less than a foot from the foundation, and some have longer downspouts or flex tubing extensions, either of which might buy them a couple more feet. But you can’t realistically get the water 10, 15, or 20 feet away from your home with one of those, unless maybe your home sits on a hill that looks like a Hershey’s kiss.
2. Underground downspouts can discharge water at the right height relative to your foundation – that is, below grade. Even if the downspouts terminate far away from your home, the slightest slope or channel in the wrong direction can send the water back to your foundation. Burying your downspouts in a trench and at the right pitch can send the water several feet below grade, to a location where it is physically impossible to find its way back to your home.
3. With buried downspouts the runoff flow doesn’t cut a groove in your lawn or pool where you don’t want it to. That helps you avoid erosion, puddles that mosquitos breed in, muddy patches, and difficulty growing grass.
4. Above-ground downspouts and downspout extensions may get in the way of landscape features you want to add.
5. Above-ground downspout extensions are ugly, especially if you use flex tubing. Underground downspouts are as attractive as your landscape, because that’s all you’ll see of the downspouts. The only sign of the downspouts are the drainage grates or pop-up emitters we add at the end(s), to prevent backflow and/or to keep out critters and crud.
By the way, we can use either flex tubing or (preferably) PVC pipe for the downspouts. The PVC costs more, but it’s much stronger and thicker, and so it will be almost impossible to cave in due to riding-mower or even vehicle traffic, and critters can’t chew through it. The other huge benefit is PVC is much harder to clog and much easier to clean out (if you ever need to), because it’s got a smooth bore. Just as flex tubing used for dryer vents is like a big Slinky and is likely to clog with lint and become a fire hazard, flex tubing is more likely to clog with gutter debris. If the budget allows is, we recommend using PVC as your underground downspout material.
We can have the underground downspouts discharge into a French drain (which we can also install), or into a catch basin that you use for gardening. Once we’ve installed your underground downspouts, we can plant grass over the trench(es), or can improve the landscape in any other ways you’d like, whether that’s planting a flower bed or doing a whole landscape makeover. With the downspouts out of the way, you’ve got the run of the place, and we can see your vision through to completion. Contact Landscape Guys today to discuss your goals and to get an estimate. We serve the entire Twin Cities area and beyond.