A properly installed gutter system helps ensure your home’s protection from the damaging effects of moisture. However, there’s one crucial factor you shouldn’t overlook: proper downspout placement.
Downspouts play an essential role in diverting the rainwater or melted snow in your gutters away from your home. Proper placement of these features is imperative to prevent a slew of problems like foundation cracks, basement flooding, soil saturation and erosion, and damage to your home’s exterior components.
Downspout placement can also affect your home’s appearance. If they’re added without giving much thought, they can detract from your property’s curb appeal. Ideally, downspouts need to be placed in a discrete location. In other words, they shouldn’t be installed in areas where they may be visible like your home’s façade or next to the porch.
Contractors like us make sure to follow certain guidelines for proper downspout placement. For instance, one downspout should be installed every 40 feet of gutter trough to ensure adequate drainage and water runoff distribution to different channels. Multiple downspouts help prevent gutters from overflowing during a heavy downpour.
The endpoint of a downspout where water comes out shouldn’t be close to your home and its foundations. Walkways or paving stones should be properly pitched away from your home’s exterior walls to keep water from backing up and seeping through the soil. Otherwise, water can find its way into the cracks in your basement through hydrostatic pressure, causing flooding.
When installing a gutter system, talk to your contractor about adding extensions to the ends of your downspouts. These should be long enough to move the discharge point of water at least four feet away from your home. Alternatively, the end of the downspout can be attached to an underground pipe routed to your yard or storm sewer.
From replacing old gutters to a new installation, The Badger Company can work with you to implement a solution that meets your needs. We also offer commercial siding and residential roofing services. Call (608) 850-6282, or fill out our contact form to request a free estimate.
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