When I look at many turn-of-the-century wooden buildings in this part of the world (Yukon and Alaska), they have totally excellent eaves detail, typically a crown on the fascia and then bed molding on a frieze. My question is what do you do about eaves troughs with this kind of detail? Where do the eaves troughs typically go, if at all? I guess you could hang it on the fascia below the crown, but most eaves troughs have a sort of crown profile already, so that will either cover-up the eave crown molding, or will look funny. Any experience or thoughts on this is supposed to be done on a turn-of-the-century or Victorian home?
One thing I saw on the buildings for Fort Seward in Haines Alaska (an early 20th century Calvary post) was eaves troughs built into the metal roofing, just up slope from fascia. Looked neat, no idea how it was built, but I suspect it is a lot of work!
-Forest Pearson,
Whitehorse, Yukon
Replies
I don't knoiw how they do it in Alaska. One of the few regrets of my life is that I never did make it up there. Someday maybe...
In New England we use a wooden gutter milled from clear Doug fir or sometimes cypress. The face of it looks like a typical crown mold. It installs to the subfacia. Then a faascia is placed under it and a scotia trim or small cove placed to detail the joint between the fascia and the bottom of the gutter. Lead drops are drilled in for drainage.
Excellence is its own reward!
Ah, I wondered about that - so the crown actually forms the eave trough. Couple of questions though:
1. What holds the crown/gutter to the roof, preventing it from peeling away? Is there a series of steel strips or something that ties the top of the gutter to the roof sheeting/rafter tail?
2. What about slope on the gutter - is the crown/gutter piece installed at an angle to provide drainage? Doesn't that look weird?
3. Is the gutter lined with anything, or just bare wood. I would think that getting a strip of metal folded into a V to install into the space between the crown and the fascia might be a good option.
thoughts on any of that?
1. Since the gutter is made of wood, you just screw it up, like any fascia, to the subfascia. The screws go near the top of the back leg.
2. It doesn't take too much slope to get drainage. The kind/style of building that uses these are generally not a long ranch, so long runs are not common. You install the gutter with the minimum slope needed and the fit the underfascia to it and again an overfascia ripped to fit.
3. Are you trying to reinvent the wheel? by any chance.
;-)
I have lined some hundred year old wood gutters with copper shaped to fit by shops with the right equipment when they started to show slight rot from poor maintainance, but find problems with that. The solderd joints can break and then the rot can go on unobserved. Epoxy type repairs are better, IMO or total replacement if gone bad enough.
If you tried your regular crown with a V bent metal gutter lining it, you would need to solve the problem of how to keep water from getting trapped between the metal and the wood crown..
Excellence is its own reward!
Piffin
If its possible, and I would really appreciate it, could you post a pic or a quick drawing of the gutter application that you are reffering to. Im not visulizing it, I've heard of wood gutters and even seen a few on the Bob V. show but they just looked like reg. aluminum K style gutters, except wood.
Thanks
Doug
Someting like this.
See attachement two posts down
Excellence is its own reward!
Edited 10/8/2002 11:50:14 PM ET by piffin
Piffin
For God sakes, now your clair-voient(sp)!
Does it ever end.
Thanks
Doug
Even we prophets have failings, I forgot to resize it.
Thgis should be an easier download....
Excellence is its own reward!
Another alternative (the one usually used in these parts) is the half round gutter which hangs slightly proud of the crown molding. When standing below, you can see the cornice detail, but from out in the yard it gets somewhat obscured. The half round has more capacity than the wood gutters I've seen. Its available in galvanized, copper, and aluminum, I think.
Missed the bottom part of your message. What you are referring to, I believe, is box gutter. They were designed into the original structure. Box gutters (or concealed gutters as they're sometomes called) would be difficult to add to an existing structure. They are also notorius for creating ice damming problems that might not otherwise exist.