"Slow Release" Downspouts

"Slow Release" Downspouts BUILDINGS New Techniques 28-4-31 "It slows water down to keep the soil around my house from washing away," says Lloyd Troendle, about the homemade down spouts he made. The New Prague, Minn., man recently stopped in at FARM SHOW to show us photos of his idea. He came up with the design after he built a new house on a hillside and tried to seed the yard surrounding the house. "Soon after I seeded the lawn, we had a couple of rains, and the force of the water coming out of the horizontal downspouts washed away much of the soil below. As a result, most of the grass seed ended up at the bottom of the hill. I had beautiful grass down at the bottom of the slope, but bare ground on top," says Troendle. "Putting in sod on such a big area would have been too expensive. So instead I decided to replace the horizontal downspouts with my own design." He built his 3-ft. long spouts by screwing together three sections of 4-in. sq. PVC tubing. Each section has a 45 degree elbow in it. A series of 3/8-in. dia. holes - six in all - were drilled into the front section of tubing: two on front, two at the bottom, and one on each side. The entire spout rests on a patio block "splash plate." "The water loses a lot of its force as it exits through the holes, and the elbows cause it to bubble upward out the end of the spout instead of racing out in a straight line," says Troendle. "There are enough holes that the water bubbles out the end of the spout only during heavy rains." Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Lloyd W. Troendle, 25160 Vergus Ave., New Prague, Minn. 56071 (ph 952 461-3360).

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