What's going wrong with your downpipe?
Water spilling out around the outlet at the top means the pipe is blocked somewhere below. Leaves and sludge tend to jam at the first bend.
Water bubbling out at ground level, where the downpipe meets the drain, points to a blocked or broken underground pipe. That's a stormwater fault, and a plumber usually clears it with a jetter or checks it with a drain camera.
Rust tends to start at the base, where the pipe sits in damp soil, mulch or concrete. Pinholes, orange stains and a pipe that rattles loose from its brackets all mean the metal is going.
What a rainwater head does
A rainwater head (also called a rain head or sump) is an open box fixed to the wall at the top of a downpipe. The gutter or box gutter empties into it, and it feeds the pipe below.
You'll see them on older homes and on roofs with internal box gutters. The open box gives water somewhere to spill outside if the downpipe can't keep up, and many have an overflow slot for exactly that. The NSW Government's heritage maintenance schedule says to clear rainwater heads each autumn, along with the gutters.
How it's fixed
A blockage is usually cleared from the top or through the cleaning eye near the base. A rusted bottom length can often be cut out and replaced on its own, with a fresh connection into the drain.
When the whole downpipe is tired, or the gutters are being replaced anyway, new downpipes in the same job keep the metal and colour matched.
If one corner overflows every storm, there may be too few downpipes. The NCC (the national building code) lets each downpipe serve no more than 12 m of gutter, and wants downpipes as close as possible to valley gutters. An extra downpipe, a larger outlet or a rainwater head with an overflow is often the fix.
Which bits you can handle
You can
- Run a hose into the gutter outlet and see whether water comes out the bottom freely
- Empty a leaf screen or rainwater head you can reach from a single-storey ladder
- Check the base of each downpipe for rust, and for water pooling against the wall
- Pull mulch and garden beds back so they don't bury the bottom of the pipe
Leave to a roofer
- Replacing downpipes or adding new ones
- Blockages that won't clear, or water coming up out of the drain
- Anything connected to the underground stormwater system, which in Victoria is licensed plumbing work
- Old downpipes that might be asbestos cement, which ASSEA lists among the places asbestos turns up
- Rainwater heads that drain a box gutter, because they're part of how the roof sheds water
Our take
Start with the hose test. If water backs up at the top, it's a blockage and often a cheap fix. If it bubbles up at the base, get a plumber to look at the drain before anyone replaces the downpipe, because a new pipe won't fix a blocked drain.
Want a roofer to take a look?
Tell us the job and your postcode. We match it with a Find My Roofer certified roofer who specialises in that kind of work, and they call you to quote. Your number goes to them alone.