Proper drainage around a home is critical. Water draining too close to a house can cause foundation damage. The worst case is when a basement flood occurs, and as most of us know, this is not covered by most homeowner insurance policies.
The best way to avoid these problems is to have a well-designed drainage system, one that directs water away from the home. Good drainage starts with the landscaping around your house, the grade, or slope should always drain the water away from the home. Next are downspout tip-outs that extend a least 4 feet away from the home, or underground drains that carry the water away from the foundation.
The most frequent problem Excel runs into are gutters, downspouts, and underground drains that are clogged with debris. The next biggest problem we find with gutters is that the entire system is incorrectly designed. For instance, a downspout without an extension pipe, or downspout draining too close to a basement window well.
After working with thousands of homeowners Excel has developed best practices for gutters. Excel does not believe in proprietary gutter cover systems you see on infomercials. As good as the marketing sounds, they just don’t perform as advertised. Excel thinks it’s best to leave the gutters uncovered, but make sure their clean!
We think the best drainage system is oversized outlets, and oversized downspouts. Outlets are the connection point between the downspout and the gutter. An oversized outlet looks like a big funnel. It just makes sense; the biggest outlets and downspouts will allow the most water to drain. This is important because you don’t want the gutters to overflow in heavy downpours. There is another great benefit of big outlets and downspouts, they will allow the maximum amount of leaves and pine needles to flow through the downspout, with the least chance of clogging this pipe. This will help keep the gutter clean. If the water drains to an underground drain, this could be a problem. A clogged underground drain can be a very difficult and expensive problem to solve. Fortunately, Excel has a solution; a collector box installed at ground level will trap all of the debris before it goes underground and make cleaning simple.
What does it cost? An oversized downspout drain system for a 1 story home costs $250 per outlet and for a 2 story they are $350 each. If the downspouts go into underground drains, the collector boxes are a must! They are $75 each. Excel believes our downspout clean-out systems are the best designed roof drainage systems you can find.
If you have any questions give us a call at 303. 761. 6400 and remember keep those gutters clean!
References:
https://www.consumerreports.org/home-garden/home-safety/keep-your-home-safe-and-secure-a9001089632/
