I'm Getting Water In My Basement!

A homeowner called last week to claim that his Waterloov covered gutters were clogged because he was getting water in his basement. My first thought was, "unlikely," and scheduled a service call. When I called to confirm the address and time the homeowner indicated that he didn't think now that the Waterloov Gutter Covers were clogged but would still appreciate it if we stopped by and would gladly pay for the service call.

Upon arriving at his home he told me that the gutter he thought was clogged was clear because he observed a lot of water coming from the downspout in the most recent rainfall.

He went on to say that he was thinking about having his roof redone within two years and asked if we should remove the covers before doing so. I informed him that based on condition of his roof, he had at least five years before he'd need a new roof and that his local Waterloov dealer was also a roofer. He was glad to hear that he'd have "one stop shopping," as he put it and that he had an additional few years.

He was still confused as to why he was getting water in his basement from the gutter he thought was clogged.

Upon investigating I found that the end of the leader went into an open four inch pipe which was about 8 feet long. What was happening was that water was flowing into the large pipe with some of it was flowing back to the foundation since the connection between the discharge leader and pipe was open.

The problem was fixed by shortening the leader to raise the discharge elbow and replacing the large open pipe with an eight foot leader stretching through the shrubs and then encasing the leader with the 4" pipe to protect it from any accidental crushing.

As we left, the homeowner gave us names of two neighbors who needed our gutter protection services.

Tomorrow we have another service call from a customer who claims that his newly installed gutter covers of two years ago are clogged. Although it's almost impossible that the Waterloov Gutter Covers are clogged, we'll investigate anyway and report

Gutter Covers and Gutter Protection "Rain Barrels"

Rain Barrels like you can see all over the web are becoming more popular as a way of collecting water from gutters. Of course in the northeast part of the country with all the rain we've been having recently this is hardly an issue, however, there are many parts of the country and from time to time the northeast where there is a water shortage and it makes sense to collect all the water you can.

The problem is that if you have trees around your home, the water has too much organic matter and debris. The obvious answer would be to use gutter covers and the one that is most effective at keeping organic debris out of gutters is the Waterloov system. In fact it's been used for over a decade in the Pennsylvania area for collecting water for cisterns where the water can be used for drinking or irrigation.