Gutter issues (floor, how much, roof, foundation)

[msm_teacher]

I am looking for information from those experienced fixing a problem like this:

We have a 50 foot run of gutters along our house with down spouts at each end. The roof area is approx. 1,000 sq. ft. There is only about a 1 in. drop in grade from the middle towards each end.

There are two problems. First, it is a chore to keep these gutters clean with a wooded yard, and we want to have quality gutter guards installed. The first quote we got was over $5,000. Really?

Second, the gutters don't seem able to keep up with the runoff. The water overflows the gutters with anything more than a mild rain.This happens even after the gutters have been cleaned out. Do we need to have the gutters re-graded or add another downspout?

Thanks!

[chet everett]

I had a house with a relatively small roof area bit the slope was steep and the water accelerated so fast that it often over spilled the gutters. Another house I had the problem of the downspouts draining too slowly. You basically need to have a gutter out there when it is raining to tell the difference.

As to the devices that allegedly keep debris out of gutters i have several neighbors that have different companies offerings. All have short comings. Some are prone to collecting pine needles or maple seeds, others still allow leaves to build up in an impenetrable layer before the rainwater ever gets to the trough of the gutter, others significantly reduce the volume of water that gutters will hold.

Bottonline -- for $5000 I can hire a good crew of gutter cleaning guys three times a year for over 10 years, which I what I intend to keep doing...

[Barking Spider]

I assume you have made sure the downspouts are not clogged, and are free flowing.
If they are, and the gutters can not handle the water, then either (or both) the downspouts are not big enough (they come in different sizes), or the gutters are not big enough to handle to water.

[msm_teacher]

Originally Posted by chet everett

I had a house with a relatively small roof area bit the slope was steep and the water accelerated so fast that it often over spilled the gutters. Another house I had the problem of the downspouts draining too slowly. You basically need to have a gutter out there when it is raining to tell the difference.

Great idea - I'll get my husband to check it out. In the pouring rain. While I shout instructions from inside. You're right, until we can narrow down where the problem is, it can't be fixed.

Originally Posted by chet everett

As to the devices that allegedly keep debris out of gutters i have several neighbors that have different companies offerings. All have short comings. Some are prone to collecting pine needles or maple seeds, others still allow leaves to build up in an impenetrable layer before the rainwater ever gets to the trough of the gutter, others significantly reduce the volume of water that gutters will hold.

Bottonline -- for $5000 I can hire a good crew of gutter cleaning guys three times a year for over 10 years, which I what I intend to keep doing...

That was always our method too. In fact I could hire someone to come out almost 40 times for that huge estimate. The problem here is that we have a ton of trees and the gutters get clogged within weeks of being cleaned out. Plus, many of the gutter guards have ridges that slow down the water, which would fix the acceleration problem.

[dedratermi]

Please don't spend $5k (or any amount near that) on gutter guards. Consumer Reports recently did a review of them. The professionally-installed solid cover products (like Gutter Helmet) didn't rate as high as the screen-type covers you can buy yourself at Lowes, and they cost up to 50 times more. I was surprised that the cheap Lowes products rated so well, so I am trying them on my own house. This is the one I ended up using, and it costs about 50 cents a foot (comes in 3-foot sections). Amerimax Home Products, Inc.

So far so good! I have watched during a torrential downpour and the gutters are still clean after the trees dropped their leaves this fall. Long-term durability is unknown, but for what they cost I can afford to do this every few years if needed. Sure beats cleaning gutters 4 times a year!

[windtimber]

Never used them myself, but they look interesting. Rainhandlers. - Rainhandler gutter -

[ShaneSA]

Do you really need gutters? I don;t know where you are located or how much rain you get. My solution was to remove the gutters. The runoff from the infrequent rains we get was too much for the gutters. In South Texas we get a months worth of rain in 2 days. Then no rain for 3 or 4 months. So I removed the gutters. All they did was rot the facia they were attached to.
So...if you have a row of bushes or drip area that can handle the runoff from the roof, remove the gutters.
As previously said, if you need them, maybe the size of the gutters need to be increased and the slope changed to either have one end for a downspout or bigger downspouts on both ends.

[lifelongMOgal]

Originally Posted by chet everett

I had a house with a relatively small roof area bit the slope was steep and the water accelerated so fast that it often over spilled the gutters. Another house I had the problem of the downspouts draining too slowly. You basically need to have a gutter out there when it is raining to tell the difference.

As to the devices that allegedly keep debris out of gutters i have several neighbors that have different companies offerings. All have short comings. Some are prone to collecting pine needles or maple seeds, others still allow leaves to build up in an impenetrable layer before the rainwater ever gets to the trough of the gutter, others significantly reduce the volume of water that gutters will hold.

Bottonline -- for $5000 I can hire a good crew of gutter cleaning guys three times a year for over 10 years, which I what I intend to keep doing...

^^^This !

I paid extra to have a gutter-screen-like device placed on my new 6" gutters and they accomplished nothing other than to allow debris to stick to them thus blocking the gutters (in the first year mind you).

Trim trees closest to house so that they do not hang over the roof and drop debris straight in and then hire someone to clean the gutters at least 2x/yr. You'll be money ahead than if you paid for gutter gimmicks that don't work.

[ferretkona]

Costco.com had foam inserts very reasonable. Mine is not long enough to care about.

[msm_teacher]

Thanks for the input. It sounds like no one has had a good experence with any type of gutter guards. We were expecting the estimate to be closer to $1,000 including labor. That would have been worth it to us for someone else to climb up there. Our goals were to reduce how often the gutters clog and to pick one that also slowed down the water flow into the gutters (grates don't do that). We don't own the trees that clog our gutters - they are on protected wetlands.

We have to do something - the overflow is hitting the base of our windows on the lowest floor and directed at the foundation in others. Another short term, cheap solution we are looking at is adding another downspout in the run. I like the idea of changing to bigger downspouts, too.

Any ideas of how to determine if the water is overshooting the gutters to begin with? The roof line is not visible from the ground. And, I don't want to hang out the window with a camera rig during a rain storm.