Replies

1. 
   DanT | Sep 06, 2005 12:57am | #1

   Yeah, I have been in the gutter both physically when I was young, and high, as you describe.  Then most of my life I have been in the mental gutter.  I hope some day to retire and not have to live in the tunnel gutter.  DanT

1. 
   Piffin | Sep 06, 2005 01:29am | #3

   I bet he thinks that response rolled a gutter-ball. 

    

   Welcome to the Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime. where ... Excellence is its own reward!

1. 
   DanT | Sep 06, 2005 02:04am | #5

   True, I just couldn't resist.  :-) DanT

2. 
   Piffin | Sep 06, 2005 01:25am | #2

   My only input is that I hate gutters. Drive off into one and you are really a stick-in-the-mud.
   ;)

   really, a welldesigned house - well graded does not need more than four to eight feet of gutter or rain diverter.

   Gutters can cause as much trouble as they save. if you put them oin, be ready to clean them twice a year. I can't count how many times I see little trees growing up out of somebodies gutters.

    

    

   Welcome to the
   Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime.
    where ...
   Excellence is its own reward!

1. 
   IMERC | Sep 06, 2005 07:52am | #8

   Drive off into one and you are really a stick-in-the-mud.

   Is that more like a ditch???Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming<!----><!----><!---->

   WOW!!! What a Ride!<!----><!---->

   Forget the primal scream, just ROAR!!!

1. 
   Piffin | Sep 06, 2005 09:42pm | #9

   depends what state you are in. 

    

   Welcome to the Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime. where ... Excellence is its own reward!

3. 
   Stuart | Sep 06, 2005 01:38am | #4

   I had Leafguard gutters put on my house a couple years ago, and I love'em.  My house is tall, with lots of gutters, and lots of trees to drop leaves and sticks.  I get up on a ladder and look in them every so often, and they've stayed nice and clean.  I haven't noticed any ice dams either (I'm in Minnesota so I get plenty of snow and cold.)

   http://www.leafguard.com/home800.asp

   
   

   ---

   Edited 9/5/2005 6:39 pm ET by Stuart

4. 
   andybuildz | Sep 06, 2005 02:48am | #6

   Don't do it yourself...please.
   around here "everyone" has gutters especially if you want to keep a dry basement and have overhangs that aren't deep.
   Trim the trees...they shouldn't be hanging over your roof anyway if possible.
   Be well
   andy

   The secret of Zen in two words is, "Not always so"!

   When we meet, we say, Namaste'..it means..

     I honor the place in you where the entire universe resides,

   I honor the place in you of love, of light, of truth, of peace.

   I honor the place within you where if you are in that place in you

   and I am in that place in me, there is only one of us.

    

    

   
    

    

5. 
   Dinosaur | Sep 06, 2005 03:46am | #7

   Place your gutters at ground level. This makes them a lot easier to clean.

   Wait till a rainstorm has dripped enough off your eaves to show you where on the ground the runoff will land, then dig an 8"wX6"d trench centered on the drip line. The trench bottom needs to slope downhill to a small rockpit (12"x12"x24" deep) from the bottom of which you run flexible drainpipe to daylight. Cover the bottom of the trench with a layer of waterproof membrane, buttresss it with 1x6 on both sides, and fill it with ½" gravel. Done.

   You should only need an eaves trough at the point foot traffic passes under an eave. (For the front & back main entries, in most cases, that is.) You can use a 6' section of eaves over the traffic pathway with a single downspout feeding into the ground-level gutter. If your main entries are on the gable walls of your house, or if you have an Ontario peak over it/them, you won't even need that.

   Dinosaur

   A day may come when the courage of men fails,when we forsake our friends and break all bonds of fellowship...

   

   But it is not this day.

6. 
   CapnMac | Sep 06, 2005 11:49pm | #10

   Gutters are either better than first bicycles and slided bread, or the bane of all things good in housewrightery.  Depends upon the perspective.

   Ice dams may or may not be problem with ordinary gutters--the roof construction probably has more to do with that, than how the water gets off the roof.

   Sadly, gutters seem to orgainze into two groups, average and rotten.  The original installer can have little to do with the out come of the gutter instalation.  That might seem odd, but consider a really good porfessional seamless gutter guy might not notice the really bad uh-oh in the roof/soffit/fascia junction (or might do something dumb like lap the drip edge the wrong way--there's a long thread on that, if you're keen to search).

   The ground level drain suggested in one of the posts has some merit in snow country, and might fit in well with one of the diverter/rain screen systems if you get a lot of rainfall.  I, personally, prefer an entry proch for keeping rain off visitors, but that can conflict with a number of architectural styles.

    

   Different note:  Coll handle.  I've been beset (or just surrounded) by daves in quantity.  Can't say I ver thought of converting them into a military discipline, though . . . <g>

   Occupational hazard of my occupation not being around (sorry Bubba)