My house faces North. I have down spouts on all four corners of the house.
My challenge is that in the late winter/ early spring, the sun melts the snow off the roof and comes down the downspouts.
On the South side of the house, it's warm enough that the water flows away, and when it doesn't there's no one walking there.
On the North side of the house, it's in the shade. When the water hits the ground/concrete of the driveway/walkway it basically freezes instantly. The North East corner is OK, because no one walks there. However, on the North west corner (where the * is in the picture below), we get a huge buildup of ice there.
The treatment so far has been mechanical (chipping ice away) and chemical (salt). As it's summer now, it's a good opportunity to fix it permanently.
I've had straight extensions on that downspout to extend the flow somewhere better, but:
- It tends to get stepped on by letter/paper carriers
- I can't angle it enough to make a real difference without directing it onto the neighbour's walkway
- If there's any buildup of snow at the bottom, it tends to back the water up into the extension and turns it into an ice log.
I've thought about adding a catch basin or running it down the yard underground in a weeping-tile pipe. But on both cases, I'm afraid of it also becoming a block of ice as well.
Any thoughts on away around this?
