Downspout Repair and Extensions in Hixson, TN
A perfect gutter feeding a failed downspout is still a wet wall. This is everything below the outlet, and it is the part that decides where the water actually ends up.
Scope
What Downspout Repair Covers
Everything from the outlet downward. Sections that have split at the crimps, lengths that have been reversed into or mown into, brackets that have let go of the wall, elbows that have worked loose, and runs that empty somewhere unhelpful.
It also covers adding what was never there. Plenty of houses were given one downspout for a length of roof that needed two, and no amount of clearing fixes that.
What we do not do is anything buried. If the answer to your problem is a pipe in a trench, that is a drainage contractor, not us, and we will point you at one.
When it is the pipe itself
Blocked and Damaged Downspouts
A one-off blockage is a cleaning job. A downspout that blocks in the same spot every single year is telling you something else: usually a crushed section, a badly made joint, or an elbow with too tight a turn in it for what the roof is sending down.
Damage is mostly at the bottom, because that is the end at knee height next to a driveway. Flattened lengths get replaced rather than straightened, since a pipe that has been crushed once will crease again at the same point.
Higher up it is usually brackets. A downspout that is only held on at the top and the bottom will drum in the wind and eventually part company with the wall.
The last few feet
Downspout Extensions and Where Water Discharges
An extension is a simple thing that solves a surprising number of damp problems. The roof collects a great deal of water, and dropping all of it at the base of a wall is how you end up with a soft flowerbed, staining low down the wall and a basement nobody can explain.
How far it needs to go is a question about your ground rather than a fixed figure. A lot that falls away from the house needs less than one that sits level or slopes back toward it.
Above ground, we can run it out to where the fall takes over, turn it along a wall to a better spot, or feed it onto a paved surface that already drains somewhere sensible.
Questions
Downspout Repair Questions
Mine blocks in the same place every year
Then clearing it is treating the symptom. Something about that spot is catching material, and it is normally a crease, a joint that does not line up, or a turn that is tighter than it should be.
Replacing the offending section usually costs less than several years of going back to unblock it.
How far should the water be taken?
Far enough that it is not soaking the ground tight against the wall, which depends entirely on how your ground falls. A number that suits somebody else's ground is no use to you, which is why this one gets looked at rather than guessed.
Do you connect downspouts into underground drains?
No. Buried pipework, soakaways and anything needing a trench are a drainage trade rather than ours, and we are not going to pretend otherwise to keep a job.
We can get the water to the ground and move it away above the surface. Past that point you want somebody who does it properly.
Can a downspout be moved to a better spot?
Usually. It means a new outlet cut in the gutter and the old one closed off, so it is a little more involved than it sounds, but it is routine work.
Worth doing if the current one lands beside a door, over a path that ices up, or against the one corner of the house you keep having trouble with.
Does a dented downspout need replacing?
Not always. A dent that has not reduced the bore much will carry on working for years and is a cosmetic decision.
What does need replacing is anything folded, split at a seam, or squashed enough to form a shelf inside, because that is where everything coming off the roof will start to collect.
Not sure where the water is going?
Tell us what the ground looks like after heavy rain.
423-762-5904Where we work
Downspout Repair Service Area
Based in Hixson, Tennessee, and working across southeast Tennessee and into north Georgia.
- Hixson
- Chattanooga
- Cleveland
- Signal Mountain
- Red Bank
- Soddy-Daisy
- Ooltewah
- East Ridge
- Collegedale
- Lookout Valley
- Spring City
- Jasper
- Dunlap
- Pikeville
- Monteagle
- Grundy County
- Chickamauga, GA
- Ringgold, GA
Pages for the areas we are asked about most
Somewhere else on the list, or near it? Call 423-762-5904 and ask.
Request a Downspout Repair Estimate
Tell us how many downspouts the house has and which one is giving you trouble. That is usually the whole diagnosis.
Or call 423-762-5904