Recently I had to fix a drainpipe that had fallen off of my house. I don’t know how exactly this happened, but it did. The pipe itself was in need of repair anyway, so instead of just attaching it back to the side of the house I decided to start from scratch and buy a new one.
For this project I first went to class at YouTube university to see what I would be in for. Every video I watched was less than ten minutes long and completely digestible. This was definitely a job I could handle. All I needed were the ingredients.
At the hardware store I bought the actual drainpipe, screws that are specifically meant for drainpipes, and tin snips. If you are thinking of undertaking this task I can’t stress enough how much tin snips helped. (Also get gloves) You need gloves. I already owned some gloves from a previous project.
Thankfully all of these things fit in my car. I didn’t think about the drainpipe being too long for my car until it was too late, but luckily it just fit.
Being that every video I watched of someone installing a drainpipe to a house took ten minutes or less, I assumed this would take me about a half hour. It took me way longer.
In technical terms, first I screwed the wavy pipe onto the little spout that is built into the gutters. This part didn’t take long. In fact this was so easy that it gave me false confidence for the next part.
The next part is what got me questioning whether or not I watched the correct videos. For step number two I had to insert the longer pipe into the wavy bit. This required slightly bending the longer pipe to fit into the pipe I had already screwed in place. For this I tried to use the tin snips. It slightly worked. In the videos I watched this took about five seconds to do. I kept accidentally cutting the pipe and needing to start over. Lots of swear words exited my mouth.
Once I got it bent enough to fit into the first pipe I had to screw it in place. All while balancing on my porch railing, which should probably not be used as a stepping stone. This took some time because I kept dropping the screws and losing my balance. This step was by far the hardest, but as soon as it was done the rest of the pipe came together easily. I was able to finish the rest of it on solid ground, so that alone was wildly helpful. I attached one more wavy bit and then made sure to pitch the water away from the house.
I was so proud of myself for this one. It was something I never expected myself to be able to do, but I did it. It took a lot longer than ten minutes for me, but if I have to do it again I’ll know I can handle it. On the easiness scale I would put this on par with mopping. I may not want to do it, it’s tedious, but very manageable.
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