Hi,
Am working on my daughter’s school building which uses half-round rain gutter. A long run is sagging because the front(outer) edge of the gutter is dropping. Upon inspection, the fascia screws which hold the brackets up are pulling loose.
In my opinion, its a bad design because all the force is pulling on the screws. I think it should either have straps going from the roof to the outer edge of the gutter to keep it pulled up, or secondary brackets coming up from the bottom of the fascia and then screwed onto the bottom of the gutter brackets. This would keep the gutter pushed up.
Anyone have experience with this type of repair?
Thanks, Jon
Replies
I don't have experience with it, but you are right, the design is bad. I suppose in a school the roof is not shingled? (So you couldn't put a strap from the ouside edge and run it under shingles and nail it in place.) A bracket of some sort from the bottom up sounds good too.
If frequent cleaning of tree leaves is a consideration, brackets under the gutter -- leaving the top open -- will make life a bit easier for whoever has to clean it.
-- J.S.
Can you get behind the fascia and replace the screw with a bolt, washer, and nut? Or add a stouter piece of wood behind the fascia to screw a stouter screw into? Otherwise, it sounds like some kind of bracket redesign is in order.
Does it snow there? Often badly sagging gutters are the result of ice and snow build up which is another whole issue. Ice and debris can collect if the gutter is no longer flowing making a small problem bigger over time. If it is due to age or perhaps a tree limb hit it you may be able to just up size the fasteners, they were probably nails anyway if it is an older building. If its that plastic stuff, just tear it off. We depend on the shear strength of fasteners all the time, using it is not necessarily bad design. Fasteners have to be sized and installed correctly. Adding brackets or tying into the roof could cause trouble you don't want. If faced with this repair I would look at larger more secure fasteners first. If present supports look bent or the gutter looks out of shape I would take it down, get new mounts and repair the damage before reinstalling it securely. Customer will be informed that it will not hold ice dams for long.
Most of the half-round I've seen has straps running from the front edge up to a point several inches up the roof (I'm guessing about 6" vertically).
If you can give me a picture, I'll tell you what's wrong and how to fix it. I've hung a mile of 1/2 rd gutter. Too often, the problem is installer error or using the wrong hangers for the application. I hate the strap type hangers ( I like shanks and circles ), but there's 10 types of shanks with very specific uses.
Go here and see if you can identify the type hanger used:
http://www.bergerbros.com/products_halfround.html
It has #44-#1 combination circle and plate.
Thanks!
Jon
Those hangers are weak at the connection between the plate and the circle. If they've been over loaded (snow, etc), the plate tends to pouch out in the middle. Also, check the fastners. I've seen these things nailed on with roofing nails rather than screwed. They also may just be connected to the fascia and it may be tilting over. They should be on 3' centers or less. good luck.