I think the little man is more prickly than cheeky, but he's awfully clever either way. My favorite here is the cloud, because that's the only one that seems practical. I get torrential rains, so any turns and undulations in gutters and downspouts are a problem. You want the water gone ASAP...sans obstacles. The dragonfly is a work of art, though.

(I wonder whether the music made by that amazing array in Dresden gets on anyone's nerves at 3 am.)

Except the cloud one dumps water right at your foundation, which is exactly where you don't want it...

Most are whimscial and fun...I agree that the dragonfly IS a wonderful work of art and I too wonder about the noise on that blue building.

No chain downspout?

http://www.tecnowooditalia.com/immagini/foto/tettini/tettini_4.jpg

That Dragonfly is exquisite

LOOOVE the cloud! But my downspouts are (apparently by code) buried, so not applicable.

SHERRYBINNH, a lot of municipalities are re-thinking tieing downspouts to storm sewers because it isn't very green and it costs municipalities a lot to operate. You may want to look into it.

The cloud, the watering can and the dude are entirely dumm ... aren't you supposed to get the water as far from the base of the house as possible???
Can't comment on the dragonfly because I can't see where the water is going (but it visually pleasant, unlike the rest).

Welcome home! The rain was sadly too late for my long dead totally burned to dirt lawn...

Buried downspouts don't go to storm drains. They direct the water farther away from the foundation so it doesn't end up in the basement. For example, mine are buried, but discharge about 8 feet from the house. Ideally, the house is at a slightly higher elevation so the water drains away from the foundation. Some of these are interesting, but not functional.

NGNerd, many buried downspouts do discharge into storm drains. I don't know if there is a good way to tell what type you have from aboveground. Our old house fed into the sewer system. It was built that way in the 1940s.

These downspouts are cute, but what I'd like to see are some splash blocks or diverters that are not ugly. Our current house, circa 1910, just has ordinary downspouts and we need the splashblocks -- one of them was out of place when we bought the house and we didn't realize until quite a bit of water entered the basement during the first fall rains last year. Putting that ugly plastic ramp in the right spot eliminated about 98% of the water coming in.

While these are neat and all, I can't help but to think that it would be a lot better to put rain barrels on each of these downspouts instead of artwork. Given the fact that most of the U.S. is currently in the worst drought since the 1950's it would be really great to advocate capturing that rain water instead of losing it.

The cloud downspout concentrates the water in one big puddle at the foundation. That's not "clever," that's "cutesy." If I bought that house, my to-do list would be topped with "Rip off clod; install sensible drainage."

Nice, make an underhanded comment insulting your Republican audience.

More architects today are building without downspouts.

So, these architects who build without downspouts, do they simply pretend that rain collecting on a roof and then following the laws of gravity is not their problem? Or do they have a better solution? It might be something "more" of them are doing, but the existence of a large quantity of fools does not redeem their foolishness.
More info, please?

Really? The RNC? C'mon AP, we can do without the political digs.

Signed,
A Proud Republican