Downspouts- need an elegant solution
I would like to make some modifications in my garden and have these pesky downspouts to deal with. Does anyone have an elegant way to deal with draining water away from the house other than have a long pipe across my garden?
Seems like I've seen a couple of Eichlers that have some piping underground that drain the water away into a dry bed. Any advice about how to do this correctly would be helpful.
Lynn
Copper rain chains to french drains?
We have a rain chain by our master bedroom slider, but it isn't installed right and it makes a lot of noise. I have a new one with a reducer to decrease noise (I hope!) by directing more water to the chain, but I haven't installed it yet. A Japanese rain chain would end in a granite bowl, but that might not move enough water away from the house in northern CA. We live in Orange and it isn't much of an issue....
Or for some ultra cool modern runoff designs, look at the book "Rain Gardens" by Nigel Dunnett and Andy Clayden. You can also find a couple of nifty designs by googling "rain garden".
Hi Lynn,
Barry Briscoe did a gorgeous remodel of his Eichler and landscaping in the Japanese vein (a mid-century influence, especially on Jones). Luckily, being a web designer, he was gracious enough to share his remodel via his website which has a lot of photos and accompanying explanation.
You can see an example of the ornamental rainchains mentioned at:
http://www.totheweb.com/eichler/sideyard.html
He also has an example of running downspouts into drainage pipes at:
http://www.totheweb.com/eichler/sideyard/r_excavation.html
On our home, the landscaping contractor ran the drainpipes on two sides into an underground pipe similar to Barry's except ours was rigid white drainage pipes slanted (1/4" per 1'?) towards the front line of the property (lower). He sub-contracted another crew to come out and "core" the curb so that the underground pipe exits at street level into the gutter.
Cheers.
Jake
Thanks for your help- this is exactly the information that I needed. I have 1 downspout that could have a rainchain but the rest probably need trenching.
Lynn
