Question
My home is 26x45' and has a front porch of 7'. On one side of the house is a driveway and on the other side of the driveway is a ditch.  In the front of the house is a sidewalk attached to the driveway.  The driveway and sidewalk is 5 feet from the house.  There is a drain pipe under the driveway going to the ditch.  Now there is about a 4" drop in the 5 foot area that needs to be filled in with some type drainage and dirt in order to plant schrubs and flowers.  The front of the house has gutter that actually drains into the 4" drop.  The gutter spout is 5' away from the drain pipe that goes under the driveway.  I know that I could put come type connection from the gutter drain to the driveway pipe drain in order to keep the future flower bed from filling with water but I don't know what type materials to keep the bed from filling with rain water.

Answer
Connect your down spouts to the drain under the driveway with 4" flexible drain pipe. Most home stores sell it in rolls of 50 or 100lf. It is flexible black plastic, ribbed pipe (without the holes in it). You can buy fittings to connect it to square down spouts. Duct tape works to connect the pipes under ground as long as they have been wiped clean and dry. A screw will hold the pipe to the down spout. Usually, fittings are sold in the same spot (at the store)as the pipe.
After running the pipe and making the connections, fill in the swale between the house and sidewalk if you like, burying the pipe.
As a safety precaution you could install a small yard inlet (area drain - several types available at home /landscape stores...probably get the smaller one) where you connect the pipe to the existing pipe going under the driveway. If you do this, be sure to set it in a slight depression so any surface water between the house and sidewalk will go in the drain instead of across the driveway of back towards the house. Any planting soil is fine for fill. Cover it with mulch so it wont end up making a mess on your sidewalk.
Note you may have to excavate for the drain pipe as it is 4" thick and it needs to have several inches of dirt over top of it so it does not get crushed. Also be careful where you run pipe so you still have room to plant shrubs, etc. Finally pipe must be sloped to drain. If the pipe is unevenly sloped or goes up and down water will be trapped in the pipe.
Lastly be sure you dont create a situation where water is draining towards your house, especially if you have a basement.
Good Luck.


Sean J Murphy, LA,ISA, LEED AP
Please check out my blogs and articles on landscape topics like this on my websites.
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