TrenchView — Grade Calculator

WHAT GRADE IS

Grade is how much a pipe drops over a distance. It sets how fast the water moves, which is the whole game — you are not trying to make water run, you are trying to make it carry solids with it.

Grade % = Rise (cm) ÷ Run (m)

6.5 cm of fall over 53.5 m is 0.12%. Type either number, or drag the pipe and read it off.

WHY IT HAS TO BE RIGHT

Too flat — water sits, solids drop out and settle, and you get a blockage where the pipe still looks fine on camera.

Too steep — the water outruns the solids. Liquid gone, debris left behind, same blockage from the other direction.

Right — the flow stays quick enough to keep solids moving. That is what "self-cleaning" means: the pipe scours itself every time it runs.

COMMON MINIMUM GRADES

Tap a row to set the pipe to that grade and jump back to the calculator.

READING THE PICTURE

The faint lines fanning out from the pipe start are grade guides — 0.5%, 1%, 2% and so on. The pipe always lies along its own grade line, so you can see at a glance whether you are sitting between 1% and 2% without reading a single number.

Those guides do not move when you zoom. Change the run from 20 m to 800 m and a 1.5% pipe sits at exactly the same angle — only the pipe's length and the scale along the ground change.

V.E. in the corner is vertical exaggeration. The drop is drawn about 12× taller than real life, because a true-scale 1% grade over 50 m is a line you cannot see. Every profile drawing you have read does the same thing.

The drawings govern. These are common minimums for orientation, not a spec. Whatever the plan, the engineer or your local code calls for is the number you build to — and if the drawing and this app disagree, the drawing wins, every time.