My downspout is already connected underground. Do I have to fix it?

Not urgently, and not on its own. If the basement is dry, note it and leave it. If the basement is not dry, it moves near the top of the list of suspects, because it is one of the few causes you can partly test by disconnecting the downspout above ground and watching the next big storm.

Can I just run the downspout into a dry well I dig myself?

A soakaway is a legitimate destination under the Code, but a small one dug close to the house is a way to pour roof water back into the soil you are trying to keep dry. Distance from the foundation and soil that actually drains are what make the difference, which is why this is usually designed rather than guessed.

Who do I call to find out where my drain discharges?

A drainage company with a camera, and ideally one that will locate the end of the run rather than stopping at the property line. For the City of Victoria you can check the open data for a cleanout first, which tells you something about how accessible the inspection will be.

Does rerouting downspouts need a permit?

Extending a downspout above ground does not. Making or changing a connection to the municipal storm system is a different matter and does in some municipalities — see the permit page, which also lists where we have not yet confirmed the rule.

Can my downspouts drain into the perimeter drain, and where does that pipe end up?

Where the water goes, and what is allowed in which pipe

Direct answer · reviewed 2026-09-22

They are two different systems and they are meant to stay that way. The pipe around your footings is perforated — it is designed to let groundwater in, which is exactly why roof water should not be pushed through it. A Building Code Appeal Board decision put that plainly: perforated subsoil pipe cannot form part of a storm drainage system, and surface water has to reach the storm sewer in solid pipe instead. Where your own water ends up is a separate question, and on most Greater Victoria properties nobody has written it down. The City of Victoria publishes the lateral from your property line to the main, but the loop around your house is private, unmapped, and usually only discovered when a camera goes down it.

Conditions and exceptions

Plenty of Greater Victoria houses have the downspout tied into the footing drain anyway. That is a thing to plan around, not proof that it is correct.
Rerouting a downspout is cheap. Separating a buried connection is not, and it is usually done at the same time as other drainage work rather than on its own.
The open-data records described here are the City of Victoria's. The other twelve municipalities were not found to publish the same thing.

Drain problem assessment

Local evidence

Every figure below is quoted from the source shown or is our labelled estimate. Verified dates are the day we last checked the source; a figure whose check is overdue is withheld rather than shown.

May roof or driveway water be put into the perimeter drain?: No — the Building Code Appeal Board has held that foundation perimeter drains are perforated subsoil drainage pipes which cannot form part of a storm drainage system, and that area drains must instead be connected to the storm sewer with approved solid pipe; The ruling concerned driveway area drains; the same reasoning is why roof water does not belong in the perforated pipe either · Older houses were often plumbed before this was settled, so an existing connection is common and is not evidence that it is correct; Building Code Appeal Board, Province of British Columbia · quoted · verified 2026-09-22
Where a foundation drain is allowed to discharge: To a sewer, a drainage ditch or a dry well; A dry well may be used only where the natural groundwater level is below the bottom of the dry well, and must be at least 5 m from the foundation (Sentences 9.14.5.3.(1) and (2)); Province of British Columbia (BC Codes) · quoted · verified 2026-09-22
Driveway runoff heading for the garage: Where runoff water from a driveway is likely to accumulate or enter a garage, a catch basin shall be installed to provide adequate drainage; The Appeal Board has separately held that such area drains must be connected to the storm sewer in solid pipe, not into the perforated perimeter drain; Province of British Columbia (BC Codes) · quoted · verified 2026-09-22
How far from the wall Saanich says a downspout should discharge: About 1.2 metres, or four feet, away from basement walls — and not onto a neighbour's property; This is guidance on the district's own page, not a bylaw requirement · It is the cheapest thing on any of these pages to act on; District of Saanich, Engineering Department · quoted · verified 2026-09-22
Does my property have a storm drain cleanout?: The City of Victoria publishes cleanout locations as open data, and notes that older properties may not have one at all; A property with no cleanout is harder and costlier to inspect, and a quote should say how access will be gained · City of Victoria only; the other twelve municipalities were not found to publish the same data; City of Victoria Open Data Portal · quoted · verified 2026-09-22
What the City knows about the pipe from your property to the main: The City of Victoria publishes 12,046 storm drain lateral records with their route, owner and diameter; pipe material is recorded for about one in eight of them and an installation date for about one in sixteen; This is the lateral from the property to the main, not the perimeter drain around your footings — that one is private and nobody has a map of it · City of Victoria only; City of Victoria Open Data Portal · quoted · verified 2026-09-22

Two pipes, two jobs

The perimeter drain — footing drain, French drain, whatever the last contractor called it — is a perforated pipe sitting beside the footing under a bed of clean stone. Its job is to collect water that is already in the ground and take it away before it finds the wall. Holes in the pipe are the point.

A storm drainage system does the opposite job with solid pipe: it moves surface water, roof water and driveway water off the property without letting any of it back out along the way. The Appeal Board has been asked to blur that line and declined. No — the Building Code Appeal Board has held that foundation perimeter drains are perforated subsoil drainage pipes which cannot form part of a storm drainage system, and that area drains must instead be connected to the storm sewer with approved solid pipe

The Code does expect driveway water to be dealt with — it just does not expect it to be dealt with here. Where runoff water from a driveway is likely to accumulate or enter a garage, a catch basin shall be installed to provide adequate drainage A catch basin is the right device; the perforated pipe beside your footing is not the right place to send what it collects.

That is worth knowing because the failure mode is quiet. Roof water forced into a perforated pipe does not spray out of anything. It seeps back into the stone bed along the wall you were trying to keep dry, and the only symptom is a basement that gets wet in the same storm every year.

Where the drain is allowed to end up

The Code is short about the destination: To a sewer, a drainage ditch or a dry well On an older Greater Victoria lot all three exist somewhere — a storm connection at the street on newer properties, a ditch on rural Saanich and Highlands roads, a dry well in the back corner of a garden that nobody has thought about since the seventies.

A dry well that has silted up behaves like a blocked pipe even when the pipe is perfect, which is one of the reasons a camera inspection that stops at the property line has not finished the job.

Where drain water ends up, and how it fails
Destination	Common in	How it fails
Storm sewer connection	Newer subdivisions and rebuilt streets	The lateral silts up or roots find the joint, usually past the property line
Drainage ditch	Rural Saanich, Highlands, parts of the peninsula	Ditch grade changes, or the outlet is buried by landscaping
Dry well or soakaway	Older lots with no street connection	Fills with silt over decades; drains slower every year until it does not

The cheapest thing on this page

Before anyone digs, move the water that is already above ground. Saanich puts a number on it on its own stormwater page: downspouts should discharge About 1.2 metres, or four feet, away from basement walls — and not onto a neighbour's property That is guidance rather than a bylaw, but it costs an afternoon and an extension, and it changes how much water your footing drain is being asked to handle in the first place.

Saanich is also blunt about whose problem a blockage is. The homeowner's to locate: Saanich tells homeowners they must determine where the blockage is within the sewer connection, and that it does not matter whether it is on private or public property Homeowners regularly assume anything past the sidewalk belongs to the municipality; on the sewer connection serving their own house, it does not.

Walk the house during rain and find where every downspout goes. Into the ground is an answer that needs a follow-up question.
Extend anything discharging within a metre of the wall, and not toward a neighbour.
Check that the ground falls away from the foundation rather than back toward it.
Only then decide whether anything underground needs investigating.

What the City actually knows about your pipe

For the City of Victoria there is a public record of the lateral running from the property to the main. The City of Victoria publishes 12,046 storm drain lateral records with their route, owner and diameter; pipe material is recorded for about one in eight of them and an installation date for about one in sixteen So you can usually learn that a connection exists and roughly where it runs — and usually not what it is made of or when it went in, which are the two things that would have been useful.

The cleanout dataset is more immediately practical. The City of Victoria publishes cleanout locations as open data, and notes that older properties may not have one at all If there is no cleanout, a company inspecting your drain has to get a camera in some other way, and a quote should say how. That detail belongs in the quote rather than in a surprise on the day.

None of this covers the perimeter drain itself. The loop around your footings is private property, was installed by whoever built the house, and exists on no map anywhere. That asymmetry is the whole reason drainage quotes vary so much before an inspection and so little after one.

Questions homeowners ask

My downspout is already connected underground. Do I have to fix it?: Not urgently, and not on its own. If the basement is dry, note it and leave it. If the basement is not dry, it moves near the top of the list of suspects, because it is one of the few causes you can partly test by disconnecting the downspout above ground and watching the next big storm.
Can I just run the downspout into a dry well I dig myself?: A soakaway is a legitimate destination under the Code, but a small one dug close to the house is a way to pour roof water back into the soil you are trying to keep dry. Distance from the foundation and soil that actually drains are what make the difference, which is why this is usually designed rather than guessed.
Who do I call to find out where my drain discharges?: A drainage company with a camera, and ideally one that will locate the end of the run rather than stopping at the property line. For the City of Victoria you can check the open data for a cleanout first, which tells you something about how accessible the inspection will be.
Does rerouting downspouts need a permit?: Extending a downspout above ground does not. Making or changing a connection to the municipal storm system is a different matter and does in some municipalities — see the permit page, which also lists where we have not yet confirmed the rule.

Your next step

Roof water is one of several causes, and it is the cheapest one to rule out.

Work out what is actually wrong first

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Sources

BCAB #1226 — Area drains (18 December 1990) — Building Code Appeal Board, Province of British Columbia, accessed 2026-09-22
British Columbia Building Code 2018, Division B, Section 9.14 — Drainage — Province of British Columbia (BC Codes), accessed 2026-09-22
Stormwater: homeowner responsibilities — District of Saanich, Engineering Department, accessed 2026-09-22
Storm drain open data: lateral lines, cleanouts, outfalls and catchments — City of Victoria Open Data Portal, accessed 2026-09-22

Code and municipal requirements are quoted from the sources above; price ranges are what named local companies publish, and the companies that publish them sell the work. Nothing here is a diagnosis of a particular house: only a camera in your own drain can tell you what is wrong with it. Report a correction.