Good or bad idea?
I’d like to get rid of our downspout extensions and replace with underground 4” PVC.
The thought is to connect 2 downspouts and 1 sump pump pipe (so far basket has never filled) to one outlet pipe which terminates at a T-fitting, the top of which has a pop up emitter and the bottom of T is open and drains in an open basin filled with gravel so as to keep the pipes fully drained.

My concern is March in MN when the ground is very much frozen yet warm days produce a fair amount of runoff and even rain at times. Are the pipes likely to crack/freeze up?

What is a "popup emitter"? IF the pipes have water in them, they will freeze. Whether the open bottom of the pit is adequate to drain the water depends on many factors, most of them related to the kind of soil you have.

A pop up emitter is just that....a cap over a pipe, usually an elbow or tee, which keeps the drain free of debris ( cap stays in place by gravity ) but if water rises, it simply lifts the cap and drains out. Naturally, these are placed at a low spot,and a spot where natural slope will take the water away appropriately. There is always a 1/4" hole in the bottom of the fittng, so residual water doesn't stay in the pipe.

Freezing could be an issue.

They are made by NDS and such companies.



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I did something similar when I had my house built. Rather than 4" PVC, I used 6" and ran the discharge from my water softener, A/C condensate drains, and downspouts. My house sits about 20 ft. higher than my small private lake so there was plenty of fall and water never lies in it.

If I dug the gravel filled drywell a bit below the frost line, would that help in March?

The pop up is for heavy rain when the drywell is saturated (although it will also seep out the top of the drywell)

im here in WI and last year I ran 2 of my downspouts into a 4" pvc pipe and ran it under my driveway and out to daylight

never had any issues what so ever last winter...i gave plenty of pitch and put a cleanout at the start incase any animals crawl up inside and die

i dont like the idea of a gravel filled catch basin and the popup in your temp zone

i think that will be a big frozen mess and backup when we get a thaw

run it to daylight and let it flow into your yard

If the bottom of the tee is open, how is it going to develop pressure to "raise" the emitter?

Thanks for the comments. I’d love to run it straight to daylight but the location is in the front yard which is fairly flat. The only way I see to get it to the surface is an elbow topped with a popup. Our neighborhood is fairly new and some of the builders have the downspout enter flexible draintile, go out about 4 feet and come to the surface with a popup. That didn’t impress me very much and thought 4” PVC brought out close to the sidewalk would be better if only there was a good way to terminate it for a northern climate. There is a little landscaping island that I’d like to hide this in. Maybe I should just live with the extensions?

This is strictly a gravity thing. If you have say a 3" pipe with slope on it, and the emitter is at the end of the run, the water raises the emitter. Unless you have a few feet of slope, we are obviously not talking about any PSI here, and the water just oozes out. The lid is not spring loaded, just held down by its own weight.

People use these all the time around here, but I will admit I have always seen it just on an elbow, at the end of a run. I am not sure where a tee would fit into this situation.


People use these to drain their back yard out towards the street. Then, to avoid tunneling under the sidewalk, they just terminate it on one of these.