# Downspouts



## Dwight Ennis (Jan 2, 2008)

When (roughly what year/decade) did the practice of running the downspouts directly into the ground on industrial buildings as opposed to ending them a few inches above?


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## David Leech (Dec 9, 2008)

Dwight,
March 13th, 1907.
I am not sure, but would it not depend on whether the building is attached to a city's drainage system?
I know little about older industrial buildings, but if the rainwater is going into the ground, then it would suggest perimeter drain tiles and then that has to be linked to something - or does it?
Regards,
David Leech, Delta, Canada


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## Chris Scott (Jan 2, 2008)

Water runoff, be it surface or through downspouts connected to underground landscape plumbing, is a part of an over all sewer system. The origins of sewer systems is traced back over two thousand years and credited to the Ancient Romans; the Cloaca Maxima. Look it up. 

(Did you know they still refer to that underground plumbing as a Roman Drain? Here in California it's mostly commonly known as a French Drain. But in the Midwest they know it as Roman Drains and often have never heard it referred to as a French Drains. This bit of factoid from a recent short experience in St Louis and landscaping there.)

Beyond that you'd have to look to each community's building code(s) enactment dates (i.e., town, city, county and state.) There are also those communities where there is no specific code per se to route downspout runoff underground just convention by one or more builders and/or architects. 

In many cases the requirements and/or practice of underground building runoff water management (installing Roman Drains) is a function of the environmental conditions such as soil type(s), conditions, amount of rain, flooding potential, percolation, etc.


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## Dan Pierce (Jan 2, 2008)

In the northeast USA, french drains are the name for the drainage systems in our basements/cellars which is a channel in the floor of perforated pipes installed under the floor and drain into a 50 gallon drum sunk under the floor and has a sump pump for getting the water out. Very necessary for high water table areas in the spring.


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## Semper Vaporo (Jan 2, 2008)

I always understood "French Drain" to be nothing more than a pipe sunk into a gravel filled hole. Small amounts of water go down and seep into the ground from the graveled hole, but large amounts of water would overwhelm the drain and take a long time to go down. My parents house in Indianapolis, IN had such a drain in the basement. When we moved there, in 1950, Mom tried to wash the basement floor and quickly discovered how little water the "French drain" could handle at a time!

I think the house was built just after the turn of the century (1900-1910 or so).

The downspouts on that house all came together at the back of the house and drained into a "cistern" in the middle of the backyard. The cistern had a porous brick wall down the middle of it. Rainwater went in one side and was "filtered" through the brick wall to the other side where a hand pump in the house could draw water for cooking/washing. When we moved in, in 1950, city water had already been plumbed to the kitchen sink (but the hand pump was still attached to the sink next to the "modern" faucet!) and the bathroom toilet, but the cistern water went to the bathroom sink and tub. Dad re-plumbed them to city water. 

The cistern was eventually disconnected from the downspouts because heavy rains would lift the heavy "manhole" lid. My parents feared us kids might go exploring, so Dad bolted it down!

A few years later we started removing the lid in the Autumn and stuffing the year's leaf-fall into it. Every year we would completely fill it and the next year we could do it again. They did that for 8 or 9 years in a row as I remember. I assume there is probably some really good compost in there now, but they moved away in the 70's and I have no idea what happened to the place since then.


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## Larry Green (Jan 2, 2008)

A photo taken in 1911 in Jersey City NJ shown a multiple story industrial building
(already looking old) with the downspout disappearing into the pavement; there is a canal nearby, probable outfall point. Another photo, dated 1912, of a LVRR frieght house clearly shows the downspout stopping a foot or more above ground.

Larry

PS--how about coming to Diamondhead?


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## Dwight Ennis (Jan 2, 2008)

Thank you to all who commented. 

Larry - yours was probably the closest to the answer I was looking for. I'm building a 5-story large factory (in another scale) - hence the question.

I doubt I'll make DH this year - I have no room reserved. But if I can hitch a ride, and find a room not too far away - anything's possible.


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