Need pics of the area. Flying blind otherwise.

Agree with needing pics.......however a rain garden seems a reasonable soution to the problem. That is specifically what they were intended to do - absorb and dissapate water run-off.

You could do a dry creek that sometimes has water in it.

Here are the pictures. It's hard to see the slope, but the water starts about 1-2 feet above where you can see the grass is cut. It then flows all the way down to where the road starts (but doesn't make it to the drain). It spans about 4 feet in width.

Google "rain garden."

I would contact the city and see if you can connect to the city sewer or not - at times you are allowed to

The picture is shot in line with the grade. Take two more pictures, one from the left and one from the right, showing the same subject (from outlet to street storm drain) holding camera level so we can see the slope. Also take pictures of the drain entry points at the house where 10' of surroundings in every direction (above, in front of, left and right) is included.

Here are some more pictures. I hope they help!

For the last picture, that is located next to where the PVC pipe enters the ground and it doesn't end until well after the tree

You seem to have an adequate slope down to the street. Would it work if you just filled in the "dip" where the water is collecting?

What would you fill it in with that would allow the water to drain?

Soil + sod on top. The way it should have been graded, evenly, in the first place. Anything else will be more work to do, and ultimately more work to maintain since you'll need to weed it etc.

Is my little drawing an accurate representation of what is happening?

I don’t think I’m following. the pipe does go down the grade like that, but the water just sits in the grass regardless of the grade (it also overgrows very rapidly because of this). I figured since it’s standing water, I’d have to put in something to soak up the water.

No, you need to get rid of the water. And yes, it does look like there is a dip the water is getting trapped in between the downspout pipe and the storm drain. So if you fill in that dip, the regrading should allow the water to get where it needs to be.

It is possible the piping has to be extended for the grade to slope properly. That isn't a big deal at all.

How would you go about figuring out the correct grade? I figured the water would always just sit in the grass since the piping stops 8-10 feet before the drain. There are zoning regulations that state that roof water can’t run into city storm drains, so that might change this as well.

There is only one downspout. Sorry I didn’t understand what you were asking for with the pictures (honestly I still don’t).

It’s simple, really. Stand in the water puddle in your yard. Drop dirt in it. Keep dropping dirt in the puddle until you have a mound of dirt instead of a puddle. The water will run away from the mound.

"I didn’t understand what you were asking for with the pictures (honestly I still don’t)."

I was trying to get you to NOT give me close-ups, but include space around the downspout where it entered the ground, so I could see the surroundings.

And then take the other pictures (shooting perpendicular to run of grade) at normal eye height... not have the camera be near the ground. No big deal. We will hash through with what we have so far.

If there is only a single downspout feeding into the drain pipe, you could do a temporary experiment to test what difference it would make to not use it. Where the downspout runs into the drain, you could disconnect it and attach a 4" flexible, corrugated pipe, which you can run onto the driveway in the downhill direction. (Block its "tail" in the correct orientation with bricks or such, so the garage doesn't get flooded.) During a rain, double check that no water is coming from the outlet in the yard. in the days following a rain, make checks of the problem area to see if it begins to dry up the same as what surrounds it. (I still think you will need to fill the depression that we've mentioned.)

What about having your downspouts empty into rain barrels to collect the water?

littlebug zone 5 Missouri Yes, exactly what you said. Then add sod over the top.

Your city zoning regulation makes sense to me. Your property is large enough that the city believes that it should take care of its own water, i.e. the water from your roof should soak into your own yard. The drain is for the road water only. Your problem is that you only have one drainpipe, and it empties too close to the road for the rain to soak in.

To give the water more opportunity to soak evenly into your whole yard, there are a few options. One is to having more than one downspout, and each downspout empties to a different spot in your yard, at least 6 feet away from your foundation. The other is to shorten the pipe you have, to give more area for soaking in.

Grass soaks up water very nicely when it has the room. On of our downspouts empties onto our lawn and it works well. We have a downspout splash block at the bottom of the downspout so the water pressure dissipates a bit at that spot, and doesn't make a hole in the grass.

Thank you all very much for the ideas. As for the only one downspout, I believe I misspoke. There are multiple downspouts that come off my house and meet underground (this was put in before we moved in). So it wouldn't be possible to just disconnect one of them. All of the downspouts connect in one place and then discard the water where the pictures show above. We are leaning towards adding top soil where the grade dips in to try and have it flow more evenly towards the drain. I love the thought of a rain garden, but from what it sounds like, both the installation and upkeep are difficult.

One other solution I was given was to dig out the area, add a tarp/fabric to the hole, fill with gravel, and then put a rock bed on top... I'm probably not doing the best job at explaining it, but conceptually it seemed like a good idea with the least amount of possible maintenance.

Trying to follow along with this story.

One of the problems (along with the dip needing to be filled in) is you have too much water going out of the ONE exit pipe, if less water was going to that area, then it may have a chance to dry up.

You don't have to dig up the connection in the ground, what you could do is just put on a new pipe at the bottom of one of the other downspouts and drain it to another area.

Each side of my house has a separate "underground" pipe feeding water down the yard to a different area out back. They don't connect somewhere to "one exit point". We have 2 exit points to spread the water out.

Hope this makes sense.

If you can disconnect any of them before then enter the underground pipe, you can just let them run onto the grass. For every one you disconnect, less water will be running out the pipe and a better chance of success, whatever solution you choose.

Copper Gutters & Downspouts · More Info

see how in this picture they have 2 downspouts. One drains to the right of the property and the other drains to the left, spreading out the water.

"... multiple downspouts that come off my house and meet underground." That was what I figured until you said otherwise. Now that we know differently, I think Angel has hit on a key point: you have a LOT of water passing over a single point of lawn. I would add that (and I can't be certain because the picture of it is distant) that it looks like everything is feeding into a single pipe that isn't very large. If it's a 4" pipe, it's definitely undersized which would be another reason to add another pipe to drain some downspouts in a different direction ... OR, convert one or more to surface drainage (the old school tried and true method, using a splash block and slope.)

Okay so I think I have finally graduated from being an idiot and got the right pictures. They are below. There for 5 downspouts that are going to one exit valve where the water is building up.

Well I think you answered your own question, 5 downspouts going to one exit area. Way too much water going to one area, when it should be spread out over the property (going downhill of course).

Those were my thoughts as well. Unfortunately this was put in two years ago when they dug up the entire yard. Not sure why the previous owners decided to do this. Is there anyway to fix this without tearing up my entire yard?

Fill in the dip.

The reason it was done was to get the downspout water into the storm drain system as quickly as possible, and keep it out of the driveway.

You don't have to tear up the entire yard. Just disconnect at least one of the downspouts.

Your picture #5. Don't let the water go down that pipe into the ground, put another piece of pipe on it and have the water go onto the grass. Not a big deal.

Yes, much better pics.

I agree with mad gallica and angel. fill in the dip and run the #5 picture downspout onto the lawn.

Also, consider the problem outlet pipe size (which we could not see well enough to measure it). If you remove one downspout from the "collection", then 4 remain. If the outlet is a 4" pipe, that's still too many downspouts draining through it. If that's the case, look for another downspout you can remove from the collection to drain onto the lawn at another side of the house. (BTW, to do that, you'd have a tailpiece on the downspout that orients it away from the house. That would spill onto a splash block then run out onto the lawn. It is the common ol' school method.)