A downpipe that misses the butt is usually the outlet
I stood through the first hard rain of October and watched the shed wall darken. Water sheeted off the stop end and down the boards. The downpipe was dry. The butt sat half empty. I filled the watering can from the kitchen tap that week. I thought the gutter had failed. The outlet was two feet from the low point, packed with wet leaves. Rain never entered the pipe.
A downpipe is only a tube. The outlet is the fitting in the gutter that feeds it. Clips hold the pipe to the wall so the bottom end stays aimed at the butt, or at a diverter on the way down. If the outlet is in the wrong place, blocked, or sitting above a sag, the pipe has nothing to carry. If the pipe has come out of the join, the water hits the path. People blame the butt. The butt was waiting.
A sagging gutter is usually the clips is the run above this. If the middle has dropped, water never reaches an outlet you put at the end. Clear the outlet anyway. Run a hose briefly and watch. Water that sits is a sag or a blockage. Water that races past the hole is a fall the wrong way, or an outlet that is not at the low point. I want the hole at the bottom of the run, open, with the pipe seated in it.
Then I look at the bottom. The pipe has to enter the butt, or the diverter, and stay there. A butt that has been shuffled leaves a short pipe pouring down the side. Measure with the gutter in its clips and the butt where it will live, not with the pipe in your hand. Clip the pipe so a knock cannot swing it. One loose clip at the bottom is how a storm misses a whole week of rain.
Shed felt that lifts is usually the nails is the skin above the gutter. A lifted eaves dumps on the wall before the outlet ever sees it. If the roof is throwing water past the channel, the pipe will stay dry no matter how clean the hole is.
Skip a diverter kit sold with no pipe length and no clip count. Skip balancing the pipe on the rim of the butt and calling it connected. Skip a cut bottle as a funnel. It blows off. Skip sealant in place of an outlet. Sealant is not a hole. Skip moving the butt to mow and then leaving it a foot to the left. The pipe does not follow. Hose fittings leak at the washer, not the hose is the same wrong-part habit at the tap. I have replaced a hose when the washer was the drip. I have also bought a new butt when the outlet was the miss.
A watering can still earns its hook next to a hose. It earns it more when the butt is empty because the pipe missed. The can is not the failure. Fill it from the tap if you must, then fix the outlet so the next rain goes in the barrel. I would rather carry two cans in a dry week than watch October rain hit the path.
This shows in autumn, at the first real rain after a dry spell, when leaves have sat in the outlet since the last time you looked. It shows again in a winter downpour, when a charged gutter overflows at the stop end and the pipe is still quiet. Summer is when you notice the butt is low and you are back at the tap. I now treat that first October rain as an outlet check. I stand there for a minute. If the pipe is dry and the wall is wet, I do not buy a barrel. I clear the hole, or I move it to where the water already wants to go.
I do not need a new butt because the pipe missed. I need the rain to enter the outlet and leave the pipe where I aimed it.
If I later add a buy link here, it will be a paid promo.