Buried Downspouts

[AerynLee]

What are the cons to burying downspouts? We're planning on doing some minor landscaping this spring/summer and it would be really nice if we could bury the downspouts because my dog has managed to destroy the end of one of them by getting his run line caught in it (plus making us go out and untangle him since he can't make it back to the door when he's wrapped around it).

Does this cause any drainage or other problems ?

[affordablehousing]

Just make sure you get the pitch right, and leave cleanouts and you should avoid a lot of issues, as you're finding, with them being above ground. I'm assuming the drainage is daylighting at the street?

[Fishindude]

The downspouts themselves (aluminum) are not designed to be buried.   Cut the elbow off the bottom of the downspout just above ground level and tie into plastic pipe which is made to be buried, bury and extend the plastic to an appropriate outlet area such as a drainage ditch, etc., making sure it has a nice gradual slope to it.   I like to use thin wall PVC rather than the black corrugated field tile as you can do a better job getting it sloped properly and it's a bit more durable.   

If you have lots of rodents in the are they make screens you can put over the outlet ends to keep them out of the pipe.   They also make nice rectangle to round transition fittings to connect your downspouts to the pipe.

[affordablehousing]

Fishindude said it well. yes don't bury the aluminum downspouts themselves, transition to plastic pipe before you hit dirt or break concrete.

[ericbonabike]

We've done that a bit.  I would recommend using a corrugated plastic extension from the aluminum gutter which ties into an "above ground" 5" PVC sewer line, OR, more corrugated tubing.
We made the mistake of using a one piece corrugated tubing from the downspout to about 15' away popup outlet.

Well, the corrugated tubing above ground has popped a crack (maybe because my dogs) and now,  the only way I can replace is to replace the entire length of corrugated tubing.

[lthenderson]

All our gutters empty into underground 4" PVC tubing that drains to daylight about 100 feet from our house. It works really well and I would have a hard time going back to having downspouts emptying into my lawn near the house. When we first purchased the house, it was already set up but it was just normal 3x4 rectangular gutter downspout material resting on top of the round 4" PVC tubing opening. There was a lot of air space around it and I occasionally saw ground squirrels using the underground piping as a racetrack of sorts going from one corner of the house to the other. I redid out gutters to 6" gutters with larger downspouts and when I did, I bought premade transition pieces that completely sealed up the pvc pipe end and put a stop to that problem.

[jpdx]

I recently buried some 3” ABS for my downspouts and it’s working very well. Moves the water downhill away from the house into areas of river rock. There is no eyesore and trip hazard as with above ground pipe. Crucially, ABS or PVC is much less likely to clog than corrugated flexible pipe.