When we bought the house, it had white gutters on it. The downspouts on the back deck were on the front face of the posts, which made the outside posts of the deck look really narrow (almost non-existent) once we stained the deck dark brown, and limewashed the house.
So, when we did all the exterior work on the house last fall, we had the downspouts make a ninety degree turn to the outsides of the posts.
So, the posts now don’t look so skinny, but now we can’t get the downspout to hook into the underground drain pipes that they installed when the house was built. (They didn’t look great, and the pipe got totally chewed up by the weed eater.)
So, here’s what we’re dealing with:
In this photo, I have already cut off the pipe so it is even with the side of the hole. It is really hard to see in the photo. We are installing an elbow that goes to the side (like a J when you look at it head on) which will move the water into this hole. We are going to line the hole with landscape fabric to prevent dirt incursion from the sides of the hole, and then fill the hole with pond rocks. This will make it easier to mow; the leaves from the gutter/downspout can’t clog up the underground pipe; and it will look better than a piece of chewed up drain pipe coming out of the ground.
We have installed the landscape fabric, and have used landscape staples to pin it to the sides of the hole so that it won’t fall down when we add the rocks to the hole.
I had thought about using pea gravel for this project, but then I was concerned that they might wash out of the hole if we got a really hard rain (which we do, especially in the spring), and they would potentially get blown into the yard when I leaf blow the concrete under the deck.
So in the last photo, you can see that I have stained the side of the stair stringer and the edge of the step, and the elbow has been installed. Mike had to cut the down spout about an inch shorter so that he could get the elbow in here. He installed the elbow and then drilled a hole through both layers and riveted them together. Some people use screws for this, but they can catch leaves and debris which can clog the downspout.
We got this done just in time. We have entered a really rainy period and now these downspouts are draining properly!
Cathy At Home on the River 