Living in the Gutter

Today’s guest post comes from none other than my other half…the one who keeps me sane through this project…the calm one.  Yep, my husband Charles is here to talk to you kids about something really exciting: gutters!!  And just to get you in the mood, here’s a shot of our metal roof from about 2 months ago. (The boom has been broken so we haven’t been able to get any shots lately. Hopefully soon though!)

roof

roof 2

Hello All!  My name is Charles and I am the other piece of this beautiful 702 Park Project. Lately we have been doing a lot of sorting through old pictures and seeing what has happened so far. It can be a lot of fun to see how the house has transformed. However, sometimes when we are looking at pictures, we look at the same thing, and we talk about the same thing, but we confuse ourselves anyway. It’s time for a little vocabulary lesson.

Here’s a shot of our gutters before we got to work on them:

park 3
park 2

Not looking too good, huh?  For the sake of “the lesson,” here is a picture of hidden gutters that are very similar to ours:

unnamed

See how the roof shingles stop, then there is a vertical metal face, then a gutter, then the metal continues out to the edge of the roof and drops down? Here is a cross section that will make it easier to picture:

unnamed

Our house does not have the masonry wall, but the rest is the same. For the sake of clarity look at this:

unnamed24

Our house is the same. We have rafters, ceiling joists, soffits, soffit vents, lookout boards, fascia boards, roof sheathing, etc. The only real difference is that where this picture stops at the fascia board, we have a gutter that makes that “fascia board” into the vertical inner edge of the gutter.  This means the lookout boards are elongated and dropped down slightly. If you look back at the second picture, you can quickly see how the fascia board in the third picture is the inner face of the gutter in the second.  Are y’all still with me?

The gutter, when properly maintained, is actually quite foolproof. Note in the second picture that the exterior face of the gutter is shorter than the interior face. Lets just say, hypothetically, that someone in unable to convince their contractor/husband/brother-in-law/dad/son/brother/sister to climb a 35 foot extension ladder to sweep the leaves out of the gutters. The clog would keep the water from being able to reach a downspout and force the water to pool in the gutter. The front face is shorter so the water can run off at any point and not back up into the eves! Now, we wouldn’t be doing all this work if the system had worked perfectly. It does require maintenance.  Unfortunately, we know our gutters were not maintained for about 10 years, but there is not a single water-mark inside the house. The gutters failed, but failed in such a way that they protected the house. In my opinion, the system worked.

Now I know that anyone who has ever had to go clean out their cutters are looking at this and saying, “Where does the water go, and what happens when leaves clog the whole thing up?”

park

That hole is one of our new downspouts from the top view. The downspout connects to a downtube just like any other gutter downspout.  Also, look for a post coming up soon on how to repair/maintain these things so we don’t put the house right back like how we found it.

So lastly, next time someone says “Those gutters are going to cause you a lifetime of headaches, you should just tear the whole system off” I’m going to send them this:

unnamedew3

If you are interested in being a guest blogger, please comment below or email me at 702parkavenue {at} gmail {dot} com!

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24 comments on “Living in the Gutter

  1. My son-in-law…. always the thinker….always the engineer…..and now – with the last picture….COMEDIAN!! LMAO!!!! I want one of those rain catchers!

  2. That rain catcher is awesome. Well Written article very fun and upbeat but informative as well. You and your husband of your work cut out for you, but the house is looking amazing, good wishes on future renovations

  3. Wow, Charles! Your guest post on gutters is incredibly informative and engaging. I appreciate how you took the time to explain the vocabulary and concepts in a clear and concise manner. The visuals you provided, including the before-and-after pictures, really help to illustrate the transformation and functionality of the gutters.

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