The Journey of a Thousand Gallons
The gutter is only the first stop. Four places to look before the basement gets wet.
An inch of rain on a typical Mt. Lebanon roof is about a thousand gallons of water. The gutter’s job is to make a successful hand-off.
Gutters are the first stop in a system designed to carry water away from your home’s foundation. They need to be clear and pitched toward the downspout. If they’re clogged or sagging, water spills over the edge and lands beside the house.
Stop two is the downspout. Leaves and debris can collect at the elbows, where a blockage can be hard to see from the ground.
Stop three is the one that matters most in Mt. Lebanon’s older homes. Many downspouts disappear into the ground and run through clay pipes as old as the home itself. Those pipes can crack, collect roots or collapse. When they do, water may back up or escape into the soil near the foundation. It’s a frequently missed source of basement water.
Stop four is the ground. If water exits at ground level, soil should slope away from the house. Mulch beds, landscaping or settled fill can gradually create a slope toward the foundation instead.
Clean the gutters this fall. Just don’t stop there. Next time there’s a hard rain, walk the perimeter of your home. Look for water spilling over a gutter, water pooling at the bottom of a downspout, swelling up out of the ground beside it, or flowing back towards the house.
The gutter is where the water starts collecting. The basement is where it can end up if any stops along the journey fail.
