As I walk around my village and note all the houses without a gutter system, I wonder if people realize how vital gutters are.
Have you ever wondered why it's important to have gutters installed on your home?
Here are some of the benefits of a gutter system:
Keeps your basement dry by directing rainwater away from your foundation;
Keeps rainwater away from walks and patios;
Keeps you dry as you walk around your home in a downpour;
Keeps your house exterior clean -- siding, doors and windows -- by preventing splashing;
Prevents the paint color from fading;
Protects wood elements, from steps to decks, from excessive contact with water;
Prevents concrete work from sinking and cracking;
And so on.
OTHER GUTTER USES
It's fine to use gutters to protect your house and its foundations, and your landscaping, but they have even more uses than that, and some of them are a lot greener, too.
Rain Barrels, Cisterns and Tanks. For example, a common use for a gutter system has always been rainwater storage, that is, a way to store water that is collected from the roof.
It's also called rainwater harvesting. Pretty name, isn't it?
That's where rain barrels and cisterns come in. In Australia, for instance, almost every rural home has a large corrugated steel cistern similar to this one sitting beside it.
This huge one – it's 23,000 liters (about 6,000 gallons) – belongs to my friend Richard in Australia.
And this is my favorite rain barrel example. It's in a cemetery close to my house.
Clever, don't you think?
Other Ways To Store Rainwater
Underground Storage. Another storage place for rainwater is underground, helping it to infiltrate the subsoil instead of allowing it to run right off the property.
With no garden to speak of as yet, I have opted to do this for now, by directing most of the roof water collected by my gutter system to a dry well located downhill from my house, via a system of French drains and solid and perforated pipes. I will describe that set-up on a separate page.
Storing rainwater in the soil is especially important in dry and semi-dry climates – where it's necessary to recharge the aquifers – or just to keep the water in the soil for agricultural or agroforestry purposes.
This technique is widely used in permaculture;swales (level ditches with a berm downhill, designed to retain water) are a sort of trademark of permaculture systems.
Rainwater harvesting – by whatever means – is also a valuable strategy against flooding as it keeps excess rainwater from reaching the rivers, which prevents their overflowing.
GUTTER TYPES
Gutter Shapes
Eavestroughs come in two basic shapes:
Half-round. Gutter half rounds were the only type before 1960 or so
Rectangular (which includes the more familiar modern "K" profile)
Gutter Materials
The materials most frequently seen in North America are:
Aluminum
Galvanized steel
Vinyl
Copper
Wood
Aluminum Gutters: according to my observation, they are the most popular in my part of the world. They are relatively inexpensive and come in two types:
The seamless rain gutter, as its name indicates, comes in a single piece. Different sizes are available to accommodate your rainfall volume. This allows you to customize your gutter system.
If you choose that option, your gutters will be manufactured on the spot, using equipment and machinery that the contractor carries in his truck. I took the pictures that follow when I had mine installed, last year.
THE GREEN HOME GUTTER INSTALL
The contractor had all the machinery in the back of his truck, including a roll of flat aluminum which got fed into this forming machine.
I was fascinated as I watched the perfect eavestrough emerging automatically.
Here the end cap is being applied and crimped into place.
Seamless rain gutters aren't 100% seamless!
The important thing is to caulk every joint thoroughly and with the right product. I noticed that the tube identified this as a product especially for gutters. Here the assistant is measuring the length of the eavestrough so that it will fit exactly. This perfect hole was cut by hand. It's for receiving the funnel (called "drop outlet") over which the downspout will fit.
The drop outlet needs careful caulking too, to avoid leakage.
These spacers/fasteners have screws built right in. I'm sure they also contribute to the solidity of the gutter system.
Now the eavestroughs are ready to install.
Here's the finished gutter system on the south and south-east sides of the house.
Note that the siding will be painted white in the spring; the downpipes will be much less obvious then. It was deemed necessary to install a gutter on this small dormer window.
This was meant to prevent the rain from bouncing on the roof in front of the windows, where there are a couple of vulnerable spots for infiltrations: the windows themselves, the flashing right under it, and the transition flashing a bit further down.
I'm pleased to report that this has worked perfectly so far, but I'm a bit worried about the weight of the snow on that diagonal downpipe, this coming winter.
The topography and landscaping of my property and the age of the house had to be taken into consideration when designing my gutter system:
I needed to have the whole north side drain towards the east side;
The house had settled, so the roofline was not level; lots of testing was required to get the proper slope in order for the water to drain towards the downspouts.
On the north and east sides, the solution was as illustrated in this photo, with the top roof draining into the lower roof... ... ending in this downspout which enters the underground water management system via a 4-inch pvc pipe.
No roof is too small to get its own gutter, either. Check out this picture: this one is a mere fifteen inches long.... ...and that little bit of roof is where it was meant to go. Believe it or not, that little section of metal roof dumped enough water in a heavy rainfall to cause problems.
I feel so much more secure now that my home's gutter system is complete: no more fear of finding puddles or dampness and mold in the basement, of moisture wicking into the crawl space dirt floor, of damage to the insulation on top of the concrete slab.
The other type of aluminum gutter is the kind you can buy at the home improvement store, and which you can install yourself, creating your own gutter system. The troughs and downspouts come in manageable lengths, which means there are joints that you will need to caulk carefully. If you don't count your time and the aggravation, this kind is somewhat cheaper than the seamless, contractor-installed type. You can pick up measuring and gutter installation instructions right at the suppliers', and they are very clear and easy to understand.
Steel Gutters are made of galvanized steel. They are thicker and less likely to get dented than the thinner aluminum ones. They are moderately priced but they will rust, and so they require regular maintenance. I have had no experience with that gutter type.
Vinyl Gutters are the most economical and the easiest to install yourself. I have quite a bit of experience with the ones that are available around here.
When I lived in Mexico, I imported some from the US to install on my house. I still don't understand why nobody used gutters there. I installed my own gutter system myself there, following the very simple instructions that came with them.
Last year, we installed some on the south side of this house before construction was over, in order to protect the naked OSB walls from the tremendous amount of water that came down that huge roof area during rainfalls. I had my general contractor install them, and learned from that experience.
After I had the permanent seamless aluminum gutter system installed, I reused the vinyl components on the lower north roof, which is exactly the same width. This time, I installed them myself, with a helper. (Well, yes, he did most of the work...)
You can see the step-by-step pictures and descriptions of this gutter install on this DIY Gutters page (coming soon).
Copper Gutters: yes, you can go all out with your gutter system as with everything else. Pure copper rain gutters are all the rage these days if you believe the folks at This Old House, and they're fine if you've got several tens of thousands of dollars to spend.
Just remember that pretty and shiny as they are when new, they will turn green in a very short time – that green color is verdigris and it's the nature of copper to cover itself with it – and take into account that if the rain in your area is acidic, they will streak in a nasty way and the acid will eat at the solder and make the joints leak. But, hey, gotta keep up with the Jones, eh.
Wood Gutters are only used in heritage or restoration projects; they are very costly and require a lot of maintenance.
GUTTER ACCESSORIES AND GUTTER TOOLS
Note that I didn't get any gutter covers or gutter leaf guards. I don't think I will need gutter leaf protection because it doesn't look like leaves or flying debris are going to be a problem on the north side upper roof (which is out of reach). But I'll certainly keep my eyes open for any sign of leaves flying around there and of clogging everywhere else.
Many types of gutter protection systems are available: from simple gutter screens to gutter brushes, filters, etc. If leaves and debris are a problem in your area, you should certainly look into them. Ask your contractor, or home improvement store, or search online for the one that is most appropriate to your circumstances.
As to my own roofs, the two lower ones are easily accessible for cleaning and I know how to clean them by hand but there are new gutter tools on the market, including an interesting gutter cleaning tool that is an adjustable wand with a hooked end; it fits on a garden hose.
Specialized sites offer all sorts of gutter tools, from ladder standoffs (a pair of tubular arms that keep your ladder away from the gutters) to everything a professional needs, but the one tool that I don't have and really need is a crimper. There's no substitute for it if you have metal gutters and need to adjust the configuration of your downspouts, as I have had to do many times.
GUTTERS KEEP THE BASEMENT DRY
On my previous house, pictured here, I eliminated a stream of water running from one end of my basement to the other every time it rained, merely by adding eavestroughs and extending them as far as was necesssary. Note, also, how I redirected the right-hand downspout to join the left-hand one.
This was because the best place to get rid of the water was the left driveway. This was a lot cheaper than re-paving the right side, which sloped the wrong way. Result? A dry basement.
On the chimney side, I had the downspout drain into an open plastic trough, which was really easy to remove when mowing the lawn and for putting it away for the winter.
I liked the flexibility of that drainage system so much that I'm using it again. I think it's better than the splash pans that they sell everywhere, if only because you can send the water much further away from the foundation.
DOLLAR-BY-DOLLAR: How Much Do Gutters Cost?
As mentioned on my Damp Basement page, the new seamless gutter system cost $933.38 (excluding the new fascia and soffits, which cost an additional $3,500.)
To give you an idea, this was for two 25-foot roofs plus two 8-foot roofs and one 4-foot roof, and all the connections and downspouts. That's 70 feet of eavestroughing, which comes down to a cost per foot of $13.40.
This is a lot higher than what I've seen online, but it's less than two other estimates I got, so let's just say that things are more expensive in this remote village, and you shouldn't base your estimate on my cost. Besides, these things are usually more expensive here in Canada, to start with.
GREEN NOTES
Aluminum is not a very green material, and installing rain gutters is not an inherently green project, unless you do it for harvesting rainwater for use in the house, which I had every intention of doing when I started this project, since the house came without a water supply.
However, as I mentioned on my Water Well page, rainwater storage turned out to be a very expensive proposition indeed. The best quote I got for a tank was over $4,000 for a mere 3,000 gallons (that's half the size of my Australian friend's corrugated steel tank, pictured above). Add installation, filtering, etc., and the cost could easily have climbed to $15,000. Way over my budget. I ended up drilling a well for $2,500.
However, don't let that discourage you! Most of that cost is due to my geographical location and climate: I'm far away from everything and it's really cold here, which means the water supply has to be protected from the frost.
It may very well be feasible for you to harvest rainwater, and I strongly encourage you to look into it.
