the first line of defense is keeping
your gutter clean so the water can flow
down the downspout all right but we've
got a good working gutter here and it's
actually been extended away from the
house and that's a great thing imagine
all that water concentrated coming down
and splashing right there on a
foundation could lead to a problem it's
actually worse than having no gutters at
all exactly so we've extended it we've
moved it away from the house and this is
great because he's got a four foot
section on here and then the water comes
out and this slopes off so that water
just comes in and runs away from the
house great as our friend right
sometimes you might need a longer piece
of pipe eight or ten feet to get it out
but just get it out long enough the
water's growing away from the house all
right so getting it from the downspout
to the extension is done with an elbow
they make a bunch of different kinds
right this is a classic it just slides
right in and then you could attach here
and this one attaches this way and pulls
it away from the house in case you had
to go to a different direction right now
these are made out of aluminum yep but
there's some alternatives these are
plastic and accordion style yeah they
bend and they can go around a corner for
you the only thing i don't like about
these is they're short you really have
to add two or three together if you look
on the inside you'll see there's all
ridges in there those ridges can collect
debris and clog this pipe we don't want
to
we've also got these splash blocks how
do you feel about these these are good
in certain situations now if you have a
you can get close to the house the water
comes out and it disperses it so it's
not concentrated anymore but you got to
make sure that it's not tipped back
towards the house it has to be able to
run away from the house so these are
only going to work when we have proper
grade right okay now here's an extension
arm that we found at the home center
that's pretty clever in this case the
extension is easily hidden behind all
the plantings and the mulch sometimes
those extensions go out onto the lawn
and they're fixed in place so you have
to kind of mow around them right but in
this case you can actually just bring
the lawnmower up to it it tips right up
you mow underneath it and you put it
right back down pretty clever yeah well
the homeowner did some good things on
this corner of the house but out back we
got some problems we need to look at
now here's the corner where i found a
problem the downspout comes down the
homeowner extended it out to this point
but you can see when the water comes out
it's going to build up and flow onto the
driveway in the winter time it'll freeze
but also as that water builds up it's
going to come back this way see this big
drop off in here all that water is going
to flow back down here and right down on
the foundation and could weep right in
so good intentions but not the greatest
effect but sometimes you can't fight
great it's just going towards the house
and we don't want to come in here with
the big equipment and regrade this whole
yard so what do you suggest well
fortunately this homeowner is very lucky
if you look that grade drops right off
down there so what i would do is connect
this downspout to a solid pipe
and just take and run it
all the way down under the ground across
the driveway and so it flows down the
hill not always an option for everybody
because sometimes grade never daylight
that's never an opportunity to daylight
and then we've got another situation
right so then we change tactics we're
gonna try to weep the water down into
the ground i would dig a trench oh a
good eight or ten feet out away from the
house and in that trench i would line
the trench
with fabric put some stone and then take
a perforated pipe with the holes down
put it like this the water will come
through go down in the stone and weep
into the soil and the fabric is to make
sure that we don't get any of the soil
into the stone so that none of this
clogs up that's right let me show you
something new
take a look at this what this is is a
black slotted pipe
wrapped in fabric in between the fabric
and the pipe are all little foam kernels
and so this is replacing our pipe stone
and fabric it's putting it all in one
right and it's lightweight we can attach
them piece by piece it's just a much
more efficient way to do it so this
system here or this system here actually
allows the water to leach out the length
of the pipe that's right
what i do is i look at the roof to see
how much water is coming off the roof if
i think it's going to be a lot of water
that the channel itself can't handle
i'll put in a drywall
you take a look at this drywell it's got
slots all around it and no bottom on it
right i over dig a hole i put in three
quarter inch stone set this down in put
the cover on
line the hole with fabric and then
between the fabric in the drywall more
stone so that water can just leach out
and this is going to be able to handle
quite a bit of water yes it is