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This is a terrible picture of my house, from the top. The blue lines are my attempt at contour lines. The front yard is relatively flat. There is a low area (marked with a red X) in front of the porch. Alongside the house (far right in the picture) the ground slopes down.

Last month we had a nasty weather combination. We had already accumulated about a foot of snow on the ground. Then for two days is was unseasonably warm -- well above freezing -- and it rained a ton. The combination of snow melting off the porch and garage roof and dripping down onto the red X, rainfall, and snowmelt from the yard caused the red X area to flood. We went out every hour and threw buckets full of water out into the yard. It was inefficient and we looked mighty silly - but the water stayed outside and never got onto the porch even though it was within an inch of doing so. Phew!

About the roof. We have a standing seam roof. For the uninitiated, this is a metal roof that allows the snow to slide off of it. When the storm started, the house roof had no snow on it. The porch and garage are unheated, and so there was still a good bit of snow there. The porch and garage roof both empty in front of the porch (our main entry door). Snow often gets "stuck" in the area of the red circle where the two roof angles meet.

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I'm trying to think ahead. What would prevent something like this from happening in the future? My idea - not knowing what I'm doing at all - is to hire someone to install a drain where the green circle is. They could run a pipe all along the front of the house and have the outlet be in the backyard, which is several feet lower in elevation. Am I on the right track?

EDIT: There is a drain in the floor of the garage, about where the purple circle is. I don't know where it's outlet is. I don't know of any other drains for rain along the exterior of the house. Like other houses in snow country with metal roofs, we do not have gutters or downspouts.

nuggethead
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  • is the driveway sloped towards the street ? if yes use it – Traveler Jan 02 '23 at 06:58
  • No, the road is higher than the house – nuggethead Jan 02 '23 at 12:29
  • That does seem like the best solution. You might already have a rain drain or a perimeter drain that goes around the footing of your house that you could tie into. Where are your downspouts located / dumping? – Fresh Codemonger Jan 02 '23 at 03:28
  • No drain that I know of (house from 1960 but only ours in the last 10 years). There are no downspouts. People around here tend generally not to have them at all with standing seam roofs - I think the snow sliding down (which can be quite significant) would destroy them quickly! Updated question to include drainage info. – nuggethead Jan 02 '23 at 03:32
  • I have standing seam metal roof with gutters and downspouts. We don't get snow all the time but definitely have had snow slide off. I think you just go with thicker metal for the gutters.... I do know some people lose their gutters here when that happens but they are generally the cheapest / thinnest metal ones. – Fresh Codemonger Jan 02 '23 at 04:10
  • My comment with more information than this on another post gets deleted because it adds no value. What value does this add ? Should the questions not be in comments? – Rohit Gupta Jan 02 '23 at 12:05

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