Amerimax Flex Elbow | deedni - Heavy Rain in Southern California

Amerimax Flex Elbow: The Answer to Our Leaky Gutter

Unfortunately, there can sometimes be too much of a good thing, especially when problems arise, say a leaky gutter. The Amerimax Flex Elbow was the superhero that came to our rescue!

Recently we have seen a lot of rain this winter here in Southern California. Overall, this is a very good thing. The state has been in a horrible drought dating back to before we even moved here. We arrived in 2014; the drought goes back to 2010 or 2011.

Over the past four days, we’ve seen three separate storm systems roll through the state (and more to come). All tolled, since Wednesday night, we’ve seen somewhere in the neighborhood of five to six inches of rain.

When it rains, it pours…

When we had our pool and deck installed, the contractor we went with also installed a concrete sidewalk and drainage in both the front and back of our house. One thing they did which confused us was the connection, or lack there of, of the downspouts to the drainage pipes. Thus leading to water pooling around our foundation.

I had been meaning to fix this for months, but kept forgetting about it because it almost never rained. This winter has made fixing this more of a pressing need. I finally decided to tackle this head on yesterday during our break in the storms. There’s an additional three inches of rain expected today.

Products Tried:

Attempt #1 – Bend-A Drain

I detached the bottom of the downspout from the bracket and inserted this Bend-A-Drain 3-in Dia Corrugated Downspout Adapter Fitting. The thought being that it would seal itself up nicely and channel all the rain water into the drainage pipe. It did not. Depending on your hookup, gutter/drainage system, it may work. But for us, it did not.

I checked on my solution the following morning, confirming the fear I had the night before – we still have a leaky gutter. Water was pouring out of the area around the bottom of the flexible drainage attachment. It was doing a better job directing the water than when there was nothing there. When the water was just falling out of the downspout directly onto the foundation. However, it wasn’t taking care of directing all of the water away from the house. That’s obviously the goal.

Attempt #2 – PVC Offset Downspout Adapter and Amerimax Flex Elbow

Trudging out in the pouring rain to try a different solution, I found the combination of a white PVC Offset Downspout Adapter and an Amerimax FLEX-ELBOW 2-in White Vinyl Front Elbow. The Amerimax had downspout attachments on each end.

PVC Offset Downspout Adapter – Image from Lowe’s

I removed the downspout and flexible gutter and placed the PVC gutter cap attachment onto the drainage pipe. It took me a while to figure out how to get the attachment onto the downspout and then into the pipe. There just isn’t a whole lot of room in between. I wasn’t about to sit there and cut part of the gutter off while getting soaked in the pouring rain.

Amerimax FLEX-ELBOW 2-in White Vinyl Front Elbow – Image from Lowe’s

The light bulb turned on!

Finally, an idea came to me! I bent the downspout away from the house at a slight angle. Just enough of an angle to be able to bend the flexible gutter into the pipe cap attachment. Then, once I had the gutter in, I was able to just push the downspout back towards the house and collapse the flexible gutter attachment.

Leaky Gutter Fix: Amerimax FLEX-ELBOW 2-in White Vinyl Front Elbow from Lowes

Success!

The water immediately flowed directly into the drainage pipe, and out to the street (away from the foundation). I screwed the bracket back in to hold the gutter tight to the house, and came back inside to change into dry clothes. I had a cracked tile to fix anyway, home ownership is fun.

A good day, indeed.

See more of our Home & Tech Project posts and Home Improvement product reviews.

See all Reviews in our Product Review Portal.

Purchase the Amerimax Flex Elbow and/or PVC Offset Downspout Adapter

PVC Offset Downspout Adapter, 2X3 in. Downspout X 4 in. Sewer and Drain Hub

Amerimax FLEX-ELBOW 2-in White Vinyl Front Elbow

Shop products mentioned in this post and more.

Disclaimer: We may earn a small commission for our endorsement, recommendation, testimonial, and/or link to any products or services from this website. See our Privacy Policy for more.

Final Thoughts

This worked for my particular setup. Yours may be different. However, the Amerimax is fairly flexible so if you find that your down spout and drainage aren’t lined up, this would be the product you need to connect them. The Offset Adapter was the perfect connector for the Elbow to Drainage pipe. I’m adding this paragraph 5 years later and haven’t had an issue with the hookup since if that helps.