Canopy Guttering Down Pipe?

Frank99

Is it normal practice to aim a downpipe from guttering onto the lawn or gravel bed when no drain is available.
My porch canopy goes into my drain but the neighbours drain is at the back and so their new porch canopy guttering has been assembled to leak out onto the grass between our semi-detached homes leaving the ground a bit soggy.
I am putting a new bed of slate gravel in soon hoping it will drain any water coming in my direction.

Davesnave

The canopy probably isn't very large so the run off might not warrant a full sized soakaway, but he shouldn't be affecting your property like that. Allowing water to flow uncontrolled onto someone else's land in that way is legally a 'nuisance,' but I don't suppose you want to get legal with him.

Sending roof water into the sewers is now no longer allowed, but many people still have that set up and there are floods to prove it.


What should happen is a soakaway crate should be buried where the pipe discharges and the run off sent via a hopper and further pipe into that. The crate should be wrapped in geofabric to stop it filling up with earth.

So that's what he ought to do.

If you are having a stoned area, you could bury a soakaway crate on your side and it will collect the surplus water anyway. I wouldn't set a precedent by allowing a direct connection to it from him though.

All this assumes you're not on solid clay and that drainage through the subsoil is normal!

Me, I just get a digger to pull out a big hole, line it with geofabric and fill it with rubble. On my easy soil that works fine.

markin

If you also have a back one then the front one, if in the middle is likely shared, if his gutter is connected at the front then it is a shared and it should just be connected up.


If not dig a line 4" deep and fill it with the slate, just to stop the surface water running across before it can soak in.