Our Minds are in the Gutters

It was pretty obvious that our front gutters had a problem. This was the way the water was flowing during our last summer thunderstorm:

Isn't the water supposed to go INTO the downspout?

The gutter is a little bent up from when a tree branch fell into it years ago, but it has always worked just fine despite that. We thought this was an installation issue after we got new siding. The siding company had had to come back and tighten the new back gutters, so it was possible the blockages was related to re-installing the front. But since these were our original copper gutters and downspout, we didn't want to drag them back out if it wasn't due to their installation. We figured we'd see what we could do first.

Cue a very long morning that involved attempting to send water down--and a plumbing snake up--the downspout. Here we are trying to fill the downspout with a hose to see how quickly it filled up. It seemed like the clog was at the bottom, based on what we could hear. We also couldn't push the hose all the way through to the bottom, so something was likely in the way.

Time for the snake (well, first, time to spend 10 minutes trying to *find* the snake in the basement, shed, and garage...). After detaching the downspout from the corrugated pipe, D spent quite a while trying to unclog everything, since it seemed like our best option. The snake did make it all the way up the downspout and barely dislodged anything, but repeated attempts to send water down it made it clear the clog was still there. He spent a while doing this over and over again, each time pulling out only a small amount of debris.

We hesitated to move on to the next step but reluctantly decided to cut the copper pipe. From knocking on the downspout and listening to the sound, we were pretty confident the clog was just past the bend. We didn't want to lose the angle though, so we cut to where we figured we'd be able to reach up and get it. We figured we could always cut higher if we had to.

And there it was! So much debris. Lots of leaves and decaying gunk. Fortunately no squirrel bodies this time (you think I'm kidding but note there's a link to an old post so...). I guess the plumber's snake was just too thin and flexible to break up all the debris.

This time we could send the hose all the way through. 

Obviously we couldn't reattach the copper part that D had sawed off (we have a lot of fancy toys but not a heavy duty soldering iron). So we just used more corrugated pipe to bridge the gap.

The next step, obviously, is buying some gutter guards. Our gutters are narrow (the siding folks said they don't usually install this width anymore, opting for greater capacity) but it does seem like a few options are available for sale. We're just trying to figure out what to purchase. Hopefully we get the guards on before everything clogs again.

Sandy Fever

A couple of weeks ago Sandy moseyed on by the house. She left us copious amounts of rain, oodles of downed twigs, and one large branch which decided to visit our roof and gutter on the way down. Fortunately we kept power during the whole event - which made me happy since I didn't have to manually empty the sump.

Here's the temporary swamp. This area always goes mushy when it rains a lot. At some point we should figure out whether we can direct the water any better. At least it's in the very back corner of the yard.

The branch. I had to put the blue bucket underneath the gutter so too much dirt wouldn't wash away. 

Branch + house = broken stuff. The gutter seems happier now, with it's silly grin. Just a little drooly.

$125 later, our roof guy replaced a few tiles and bent the gutter back. Our other options were: whole new copper gutter or just a few new feet of copper gutter. At $25/foot we weren't too interested in getting any new gutter installed. Also, new copper is very shiny, so the house would look very odd for at least a couple of years if we only got a few feet installed. So here's the original gutter, just hammered back in shape.

Not too bad. We've been living here for over three years now and have had blizzards, wind storms, tropical storms, and numerous power outages and have filed zero claims for the insurance company. They really should be dropping our rate!

(Here's hoping this post doesn't jinx us!)

Gutters Where They Belong

I came home on Thursday to this:

All 45 feet of 6 inch seamless aluminum gutter, just sitting in our front yard:

Fortunately, the following day I was greeted by this sight:

Gutters! Back where they should be under our roof. In the end, we went with a local roof and gutter guy who gave us an amazingly good price that included replacing two cracked shingles. He didn't suggest capping our fascia, like one of the other guys did, and was even able to reuse all our gutter guards, which were just lying in the yard where they had fallen. We can see why this repairman is a local favorite.

And now our attention is turned to other things that are unfortunately very expensive. Our purchasing "to-do" list includes an energy audit, a tree assessment, dressers, mattress, curtains and hardware, and possibly a second bed so that we can have a double-layer bed frame. But today we had to reprioritize when we noticed that our basement windows were steamed up from a sudden heat wave. And so we bought this bad boy:

For once I decided not to research a purchase to death and just buy the number one-rated dehumidifier on Amazon. I figured if everyone else liked it, so would we. It has a tube we can run down to our drain and apparently works well, so hopefully that will help keep our basement a little dryer.

Owning a house is expensive! But at least we are still having fun.

My Mind's in the Gutters

You may remember that back in February, we lost some gutters. Now that we're out of snowy season and entering rainy season, D and I are trying to find someone to replace them. As usual, we wrongly believed that a couple of estimates would be enough to help us make our decision. But with two contractors disagreeing on what we need, we have to wait for at least one more estimate to break the tie (or, more likely, offer us a completely different set of options that contradict the other two). They are so busy repairing the damage caused by the blizzards, that it will be a week before another company can even come out and give us an estimate.

Before we get any further, here's a picture of the damage, now that the snow is gone and we can see more clearly:

Basically the whole back of our house is effectively gutterless. I think we're talking about 50 or so feet. The real question is what to do with our fascia boards--the wood that the gutters are screwed into. Ours are completely bare wood. They are not painted, stained, polyurethaned, or covered in aluminum (they might be pretreated for termites or something--no idea).

Gutter company A says that the fascia boards do not need to be covered. They will put up a new gutter securely to make sure that no water seeps back there to rot the wood. The gutters will be screwed through the boards directly into the rafters, as opposed to just into the thin boards, so they don't come out again. Gutter company B says that the boards have to be covered with aluminum to prevent rotting, which would soften the wood and rip the gutters out.

DIY websites appear equally divided, so I don't think there's one right answer. It seems to me that the boards don't serve much purpose except to be a place to mount the gutters. From what I read, gutter installation instructions say if the boards are rotted when you take off the old gutter, replace them. It's not a big deal and it doesn't really seem to have a lot of repercussions if they do get a little damp and soft. Plus evidently they haven't until now, so if a gutter is installed correctly they will probably be protected.

Second difference: company A wants to give us cheap aluminum gutter guards with holes in them, probably something like this:

while company B wants to put on high-tech solid ones that uses the water's own surface tension to pull it into the gutter, like this:

Sure it's nice, but it seems like overkill and certainly not a cheap solution. From what we're learning, we will need to clean them either way. Maybe the cheap ones will need cleaning every other year and the expensive ones every 3 or 4 years, but gunk will find its way in eventually.

Third difference: company A wants to put on standard 6'' gutters. They won't fall down, they say, because they will be screwed in more securely than they were this time. Company B claims that 5'' are better because the added weight of the extra inch can be what pulls the gutters down inheavy snow/ice.

There you have it. Two completely different options with very different prices. I don't want to skimp but I don't want to be taken advantage of, either. I'm not sure the "best available" options are all that necessary. Of course I also don't want to cause future grief of gunked drains and rotting wood. I think a third opinion is necessary. And maybe a forth or fifth.

So don't be shy, blog readers. I think I scared most of you away from contributing with my poll last week, which deliberately did not have any middle ground between liking or hating contractors. But I need your opinions now: do we go with company A or B or find another middle-of-the-road set of options?

***

And finally, our garden continues to develop, no thanks to us. We discovered this week that we have roses!

The unfun part of snow

Our house has received a lot of snow this winter. It's been very pretty and we've been very fortunate to not lose power, unlike many of our neighbors. Unfortunately the gutters are getting hammered. The snow is melting, then freezing into, onto, and over the gutters.

The front of our house gets the majority of the sun and is suffering most acutely from the ice issue. I've been knocking off the snow and ice from the edge of the roof every day. It hasn't been too hard, since I can reach the roof with a shovel from the ground.

I haven't been worrying about the back of the house since it's perpetually in the shade and shouldn't get the snow-melt to ice issue.

Wrong.

I think the kitchen vent in the bottom of the photo may have contributed to the extreme melting. I knocked the ice off, but the gutter was "linear-ized". That is to say, the gutter has changed in shape from a "U" to a "I". That'll probably have to be replaced come spring. Unless it can be bent back into shape.

Unfortunately that wasn't all. 

This portion of the gutter toppled down when I tried to knock the ice off it. The screws just ripped out of the wood trim. When the snow goes away we'll have to evaluate whether it can be bent back and salvaged. Probably not, though.

Unfortunately, the gutter looks like a continuous piece, so the entire gutter for the back of the house may have to be replaced.