Last fall, we had a job putting new siding on a house. When we set up our pump jacks on the south side of the house, right below the eaves, the sun came out and started to melt new snow on the gutter-less roof. The temperature was hovering around 32°F, causing the drips to freeze on our aluminum staging plank and making a hazardous situation (not to mention the annoyance of having icy water dripping on us). A thought occurred to me at break time when I saw some leftover drip edge in the house. After break, we climbed back up to our staging and took along four 10-ft. lengths of drip edge. As shown in the drawing, we flipped the drip edge upside down and slid it between the starter course of shingles and the first course of shingles. Bingo! Instant gutter. The beauty of this solution was a good friction fit that required no fasteners. We were able to lap four pieces, which ran the length of the building. When we broke down the pump jacks, we simply slid out the drip-edge gutters.
Noel Bishop, Fletcher, VT
Edited and Illustrated by Charles Miller
From Fine Homebuilding #185
