Where does the water go?
Rain falls on a roof in the Bay Area in January. Trace its route out loud, from the roof tile to the street, naming every object it passes through. Do not worry about being right — worry about not stopping.
Before you trace it out loud, put these five stops in the order rainwater actually passes through them.
The water family, in order
Roof to street
Rain lands on the roof and runs into the gutter. From the gutter it drops down the downspout — the vertical pipe on the outside wall, marked D/S on your sheets. At the bottom, the downspout discharges either onto splash blocks or into a buried drain line.
Water that lands on paving instead of roof has to be collected at the surface. A surface drain is a small square or round grate at a low point; a trench drain is a long narrow channel, used where you need to catch a whole line of runoff — across the head of a driveway, for instance.
The buried line runs to the street and discharges through the curb drain outlet, the small opening you can see in the face of the curb. Somewhere along that line there will be a cleanout, marked C/O — a capped vertical access point so a plumber can rod the line out when it blocks.
And a hose bib, marked H/B, is not drainage at all. It is a tap. It brings water in, not out. It appears in the same abbreviation cluster on your sheets, which is exactly why it gets confused.
Check what you just read.
1. Does a hose bib take water away from the house?
2. Which of the six objects do you only use once something is already blocked?
Telling them apart
Six water objects
| Object | Abbrev. | Vertical or horizontal? | In or out? |
|---|---|---|---|
| downspout | D/S | Vertical, on the wall | Out — from the roof |
| surface drain | — | Horizontal, in paving or lawn | Out — from the ground |
| trench drain | — | Horizontal, a long line | Out — from a wide area |
| curb drain outlet | — | Horizontal, in the curb face | Out — to the street |
| cleanout | C/O | Vertical, capped at ground level | Neither — access only |
| hose bib | H/B | On the wall | In — it is a tap |
Word stress. All six are compound nouns, and English puts the stress on the first element: DOWNspout, SURface drain, TRENCH drain, CLEANout, HOSE bib. Portuguese would stress the second. Getting this wrong is the single fastest way to be misunderstood on a noisy site, because the stressed syllable is the only one that survives.
Say them with the stress
Hit the first element hard. Listen, then repeat.
Match each object to how it actually sits on a site.
The right object
Choose the object each situation needs.
1. The lower patio floods every winter because water collects there and has nowhere to go. What do you add?
2. Water sheets across the whole width of the driveway and runs into the garage. What do you specify?
3. Your sheet notes (E) BROKEN DRAINAGE PIPE buried under the front lawn. Before digging, the plumber asks where he can rod the line. You point at the…
4. The client asks where they will connect the garden hose. You point at the…
5. Which sentence has the natural English stress pattern?
Each sentence confuses two objects, or gets the grammar wrong. Fix it.
1. The water from the roof goes into the hose bib and then to the street.
2. There are a trench drain across the driveway.
3. We put a cleanout so the client can water the garden.
Explain the drainage strategy
Task card
The client on Vancouver Avenue has been told their drainage pipe is broken
Explain to them, in plain English, what is currently happening to the water on their property and what you propose to do about it.
- Trace the route: roof → gutter → downspout → buried line → curb drain outlet.
- Explain what a cleanout is and why they want one.
- They are not an engineer. No jargon without a one-line explanation attached.
Complete the route from memory before you explain it to the client.
Water starts on the , runs into the , drops down the , travels through a buried line, and leaves through the .
Stress check
Say these six aloud while your teacher listens only for stress, not for anything else:
downspout · surface drain · trench drain · cleanout · hose bib · retaining wall
Any that came out with second-element stress go on the Lesson 6 list.
Before you say them aloud, check the rule.
1. English compound nouns like "downspout" are stressed on which part?
Before the next lesson
Homework. On one of your own sheets, find every D/S, C/O and H/B. Write one sentence for each explaining what it does and why it is where it is.
One check before you go.
1. What should you write for each D/S, C/O and H/B you find?