Extending Downspout
2006.01.07
Today I set about trying to extend the downspout at the northwest corner, hoping that if I can just keep the water further away from the house, maybe it won’t keep leaking into the basement.
In the past week, it has rained off and on. When the rain comes, I get more water in the basement (though not nearly as much as when I first came home after Christmas). When the rain stops, it goes away. Considering that there is serious flooding in various parts of the state, I guess I shouldn’t complain much about my little water problem. It’s not like my whole basement is sitting in two feet of water.
When Nate and I went to Lowes to get the extension ladder, I also bought a section of metal downspout and a couple elbows. This seemed pretty straightforward… put the elbow in the extension, mark how high it goes on the existing downspout, cut that off, and slip the elbow on. Voila.
What was I thinking? This is one of my projects… so of course it went horribly wrong about halfway through.
It was going well until I got to the point of trying to fit the end of the existing downspout into the elbow. First I used my crimping tool and tried to fit it in, but that wasn’t enough. So then I started cutting with my metal snips and bending with vice grips. This went on and on until finally I had a horrible, jagged mess of twisted aluminum.
I had been out there for an hour, I was cold, wet, and very frustrated. So I cut off all the jagged stuff more-or-less flat, wedged it into the elbow as far as it would go (about a quarter inch), and duct taped it. Yes, I know, so white trash. I’m truly embarrassed.
Not too embarrassed to post this on the web for the whole world to see though, eh? Well, look, it’s a temporary fix to keep the water away from the foundation until all this rainy weather stops. On the Fourth of July.
2006.01.15
Maybe it is just a coincidence, but it seems like since I put the downspout extension on, I’ve had less water in the basement, particularly on that side. I do still get two or three small puddles when it rains hard, but the ground is still so saturated, I’m not surprised.
Gutters and Downspouts