Creating a steeper pitch in a dutch gutter - possible?

[nmbexcuse]

I have a dutch gutter that drains the storm water away to the gutter inlet that leads below to the courtyard deck and tie into a 4" pipe that drains outside.

There are several issues associated with this gutter design. Here is a picture.

One of the issues is that the drain inlet leaks below. I know what the problem is and I just need to install a real dome shaped roof drain with a clamp that tightens to the deck that allows for some movement, and I have to reflash around that. Not a problem I can deal with that.

The other issue is if you look close enough, the previous owner has installed a drip edge (brown color) over the edge of the gutter, and have decided to screw them into the edge of the 2x12 below. One screw every 8 inches or so. My understanding is that there should not be any exposed screws. I don't know why this was done, but probably was an attempt to repair something...I don't know. I think I have to rip out the drip edge and see what is going on there. The drip edge should have wrapped the gutter on both sides and the membrane go over that, I believe.

Now the biggest problem is that the gutter itself is not pitched steep enough to drain water quickly. In some areas of the gutter there are low spots which caused slight ponding and contributes to leaks. I took the soffit panel off from below and as best I can tell, the framing was done this way as illustrated in the picture below:

The concrete tiles run to a point about 16" back of the edge. Then a membrane lined the gutter. The membrane sits on top of the plywood which sits on the truss. The vertical edge of the gutter is a piece of 2x12. Now wedged in between the plywood and the 2x12 face is a piece of strange shaped lumber. It looks like a piece of 4x4 or even

6x6 custom cut...in the picture above it is the piece shown in red.

My question is, how was this piece made 36 years ago?

My plan is to take out the last row of tiles, and rip out the existing membrane and drip edge to expose all the way to the plywood and visually inspect the situation. I expect to find a few spots of rotted wood that I will need to repair.

Now, how would I redo the gutter to give it a bit more pitch? Using a standard minimum gutter slope of 1/16" per foot so the longest gutter run is 30', I can create a high point in the middle and drain down 15' on each side, which means I will need to have a rise of 0.9375 or say

1". Heck let's make it 2".

Is it possible to create a piece of lumber, same shape as the red piece in the picture, but tapered the depth so that on one end it's 2" deeper? Can a lumber yard do this custom shaped tapered wood? If I can order and fabricate such a piece, then lay a new membrane over the entire gutter then a new drip edge, I believe that would create the pitch I need...thoughts?

I have explored the idea of eliminating the dutch gutter altogether and let water just drain over and install a structural gutter (they call them super gutter) and the screening framing would attach to that. However that created another unsolvable challenge.

Sorry for the long post, it's a complicated situation and not easy to explain.

[aemeijers]

The strange-shaped wood was probably done in a local shop on a big bandsaw, or even a 12" table saw.

I'm no roofer, but my inclination would be to have local specialty roofer line the gutter with metal, rather than the grit-faced material in there right now. Smooth metal will be louder, but the water will flow a lot better. They could do sections 8 feet long on a metal brake, lapped and seamed in the field. It should go up under the first row of tiles, and wrap all the way around past the edge of the roof. Weird for residential, but a lot of commercial roofs, on older buildings, are even more complicated. I don't know if anyone makes roll-form machines that big, but that would be ideal- no seams at all. The right metal, and a good torch guy, and they could solder the joints with little risk of burning the wood underneath. (Yes, I presume they do put a layer of something under it.)

Back in the day, that gutter would be lead-lined. Can't do that anymore...

[MiamiCuse]

now that you talk about a metal gutter, can't they use those soft metal that is typically use for flashing and line them with it? Probably cost prohibitive?

[nmbexcuse]

This is frustrating. I have interviewed 7 roofers in the past two weeks and this situation had all of them scratching their heads. Seems no one wants to actually try to solve problem anymore, they just want to work on conventional no brainer just execute jobs.

Answers I got are:

"you really need to talk to a screener guy this is more a screening problem". "Have you spoken with a gutter company?" "This is really not a gutter this is part of a roof you need a roofer". "If I were you I just pressure clean the gutter and paint a coat of something over it, it will break in a few months and you do it again". "Take down the attached screen and rip off the edge of the gutter and let the water fall into the courtyard". "Let me think about this...why did they do something like that?"

[mike]

And now you're beginning to see why people hate many to most contractors.