Gutter Extravaganza

During a rainstorm a couple weeks ago we noticed our gutters were overflowing. Since we really only have one tree near the house, we figured they were full of leaves blown in from some recent storms. Jonathan pulled out the ladder and started cleaning them out.

When it came to the north side of the house however, he quickly realized we had some problems with the drainage pipe running under the yard just next to the driveway. A very thin drainage pipe was connected to the downspout and connected to it was a flexible plastic drainage pipe. As you can see, neither stood up to the inevitable wear and tear from cars coming down the drive. 

Our easy Sunday clean up instantly became a major project. After we pulled up the busted pipe, I got to work pulling up the sod and digging a new trench a safer distance from the driveway while Jonathan ran to Home Depot for drainpipes that would hold up a bit longer than our old ones.

We had to be careful retrenching the pipe because the line for Wyatt’s invisible fence ran along the driveway as well.We had already replaced the dirt and we working on the sod before we realized we had forgotten to take a photo of our nice new pipe.

We threw some more grass seed over the bare spots and praised our timing—the following week brought even more rain. Our basement will never be completely dry but between this project and the Big Dig, we’ve been fairly water free. It took a flash flood until we finally saw water in the basement and we chalk that up to the rain coming down so hard, no gutter could have managed it.