Eavestroughs Freezing Up?
This year during my inspections in Barrie I noticed a lot of people were draining their eavestrough into drain lines, some into french drains and some into low areas away from their homes. This winter has been exceptionally different as we have had freezing rain followed by snow and then cold temperatures. The always changing weather has created a lot of problems for drainage.
I visited a home a couple of weeks ago because of water entering the basement. What I found was a rear drain pipe had been installed and the eavestrough pipe fed into the drain pipe. This is a great set up in the summer, spring and fall but is a recipe for disaster in the winter.
This particular drain pipe has frozen up completely blocking any drainage. The water then backed up the drain and overflowed against the foundation of the home. The basement window was located adjacent to the drain and the water seeped through the window well and filled the drain with soil. The water then filled up the window well and leaked through the window and down the basement wall. Lucky there was no furniture and the wall only had insulation and vapour barrier installed, which was easily dried out.
A quick solution for this an other eavestrough freezing problems is this; install an open plumbing T, I used PVC but ABS will do also, at the end of your downspout and before your drain line. This will allow water to drain out the open T when the drain line freezes, thus preventing backup and freezing of downspouts and eventually your whole eavestrough. You can add a short drain to this T if water needs to be directed away from foundations or windows etc., common sense will guide you here. This fix is permanent and need not be removed, just install and forget it.
This homeowner tip is brought to you by the Alliston Home Inspector