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Started By
Message
Do I need gutters?
Posted on 3/29/17 at 1:06 pm
Posted on 3/29/17 at 1:06 pm
I have a slightly raised rental home in New Orleans. The yard slopes away from the house. I'm horrible about cleaning out the gutters. Do I really need to have gutters all around my house? I'm thinking about removing them from one side since all they do is collect leaves and cause rot to my fascia and soffit. Only downside I see is it might kill my box woods with the water hitting them. My only other option is to install the leaf guard system which is really expensive.
11
Posted on 3/29/17 at 1:08 pm to TitleistProV1X
no gutters will mean pooling under the house even if it the yard slightly slopes away from the house. if you get rid of them id put french drains where the water will hit.
Posted on 3/29/17 at 1:09 pm to tke857
also no gutter means lots of rain water will splatter dirt & mud on your porches and overhangs.
This post was edited on 3/29/17 at 1:09 pm
Posted on 3/29/17 at 1:21 pm to TitleistProV1X
quote:
I'm horrible about cleaning out the gutters
Put a mesh grate over the top of the gutters to keep most of the leaves from clogging them up. It's not perfect but you won't have to clean them out quite so often.
Posted on 3/29/17 at 1:23 pm to TitleistProV1X
Main purpose for gutters on a pier and beam construct is to remove water and limit settlement of the home
Posted on 3/29/17 at 1:27 pm to Bmath
quote:
Put a mesh grate over the top of the gutters to keep most of the leaves from clogging them up. It's not perfect but you won't have to clean them out quite so often.
i live on a hill with HUNDREDS of trees, many overhang our house. i cleaned my gutters every saturday in the fall (sucked) and went with these and so far they've been amazing. even if i only get a couple of years out of them it was worth it to get my saturdays back.
you slide them under shingles then they 'snap' into place on the gutter itself.
Posted on 3/29/17 at 1:50 pm to TitleistProV1X
You don't NEED gutters technically but whatever rain water that runoffs will continually eat away the soil as well as start to seep in all around the house's slab.
Posted on 3/29/17 at 1:54 pm to Adam4848
My home (built in the 70's) has never had gutters and I'm dealing with soil erosion right now. I'd say keep the gutters.
Posted on 3/29/17 at 1:59 pm to tke857
Dig a moat around house.
done
done
Posted on 3/29/17 at 2:24 pm to TitleistProV1X
The single, random down vote made me chuckle.
Posted on 3/29/17 at 2:26 pm to TitleistProV1X
Concrete the yard and paint it green
Posted on 3/29/17 at 3:16 pm to Adam4848
Damn guess I'll have to pony up and get them. Appreciate the help!
Posted on 3/29/17 at 3:20 pm to TitleistProV1X
quote:
rental home
You might want to check with your landlord before you make any significant changes to their property.
Unless of course you are the landlord and rent the home out to others.
This post was edited on 3/29/17 at 3:21 pm
Posted on 3/29/17 at 3:31 pm to PsychTiger
Think of a home on piers like this in regard to settlement of a home. Imagine taking a cake pan filling it with mud and let it dry. If you take you fingers and press into the hard dirt, there is limited sinking of your fingers, but if you get that dirt wet and convert it back to mud, they sink. The more you can keep the water away the less the home will move.
Posted on 3/29/17 at 3:39 pm to TitleistProV1X
quote:
I have a slightly raised rental home in New Orleans. The yard slopes away from the house. I'm horrible about cleaning out the gutters. Do I really need to have gutters all around my house? I'm thinking about removing them from one side since all they do is collect leaves and cause rot to my fascia and soffit. Only downside I see is it might kill my box woods with the water hitting them. My only other option is to install the leaf guard system which is really expensive.
Might help if you post some photos of the house and yard, but if there were any chance that you'd get standing water under the house, I would either do some grade work or keep the gutters.
If you are not on top of maintenance and cleaning, gutters can be a problem in an area with a tree canopy. You couldn't even see my house in Memphis from the air with all of the trees.....and if I didn't get the gutters cleaned every year, the leaves would pile up and eventually cause damage to the soffit. I actually had to replace some wood after a few years in an area near one of those damn river birch trees that dropped leaves year round.
Posted on 3/29/17 at 3:43 pm to wickowick
quote:
The more you can keep the water away the less the home will move.
The shrink/swell factor of the soil in Louisiana is what causes foundation problems. It's not really the existence of water so much as having a long dry spell followed by a very wet spell. In that respect it may actually be beneficial to not have gutters if your house has a monolithic slab.
Then again it's been almost 9 years since I built houses.
Posted on 3/29/17 at 3:51 pm to TitleistProV1X
Many years ago, I lived in a rental home that had no gutters. The erosion issues were terrible.
Posted on 3/29/17 at 9:22 pm to TitleistProV1X
You could try these. Youll still have the volume but you wont have the erosion or leaf problem.
RainhandleR
RainhandleR
Posted on 3/29/17 at 9:32 pm to TitleistProV1X
I only have gutters in the patio/deck area. Most of the house has no gutters and the rain falls into the shrubbery.
No issues. I vote no gutters wherever you can avoid them.
No issues. I vote no gutters wherever you can avoid them.
This post was edited on 3/29/17 at 9:34 pm
Posted on 3/29/17 at 10:53 pm to Bullfrog
Interesting. I'm trying to go into as few of details as possible but I will add more. I have gutters all around the house currently. One side desperately needs to be replaced and so does the front. Everything on the back and the other side are great and the only place I get leaves is on the very front from two giant elm trees. I have a gutter system that is new that overhangs where the front doors are so that would remain with its downspout. What I am thinking about doing is going without gutters just in the very front which is where I have all my established bushes. I'd still have the gutters about the door but that is on a lower overhang and is easy to clean out. What I would be saving is about 30' of the expensive leafguard gutters and would eliminate the need to run leafguard on the side that needs to be replaced.
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