Cleaning gutters

[Timothy Murphy]

Fortunately, my wife would never allow me to do that ...

That's a good idea, thanks.

[tony sayer]

JOOI is there a BS spec or similar for the amount of fall .. at all ?...

[ARWadsworth]

Use a Pole.

Or a Slovakian.

[Brian D]

I recently replaced mine. The manufacturers spec was to lay flat, or else at

1:300 fall.

I think there's something in th BR approved docs on it, more to do with capacity.

[The Natural Philosopher]

That may be what they say, but a greater fall helps self clear the crap out of them.

It's a moot point as to where you want the crap to end up. I prefer it to be on the grilles in the gullies at ground level, rather than blocking the gutters 20 ft in the air..

yes. Mostly the business of falls in drains is about self clearing: a decent slope gives good energy to the flow and sweeps the toilet paper and turds along: For pure water, there is no real issue. HOWEVER what I have found with 'flat' laid guttering is that water pools in slight sags: then lichens grow, and eventually clog, and silt collects as well. Where the silt comes from I cant say. Tile wear maybe. Or dust, or soot or whatever.

[Jules Richardson]

I did 1/8" over 3', which is somewhere around that. Working at height while getting the fall consistent across the length of about 40' of gutter was the tricky bit - presumbly professionals have some sort of tool to do it...

cheers

Jules

[Andrew Gabriel]

Not a chance. Bloody heavy steel things which each took two or three scaffolders to manhandle into place. I did slide one of the planks across and through the ladder, but it wouldn't have seriously slowed anyone going up or down.

[Dave Liquorice]

There is a balance between too little fall, the water flow is not high enough to carry the debris, and too much fall, the water runs away quickly leaving the debris behind.

I'd never fit a gutter without a fall for the sagging reason.

Tile wear, bird crap, general dust in the atmosphere, algae growing in the pools, etc.

[Dave Liquorice]

The ones I have look quite light weight but do have steel uprights, so looks might be deceptive. All the bottom ladders have a plank tied against them but as you say that only slows someone down a little.

[chris French]

Web search for 'rope access'

[GAP]

I'm an (amateur) climber, and I often use my ropes and harness to get to inaccessible parts of the house (to say nothing of clambering around trees to put up Xmas lights, but I digress...) There are several rope access workers who climb at the same places as I do, and I'd go so far as to say that almost all rope access workers are also climbers. So I think that the earlier suggestion of enlisting the aid of a climber to get to your problem gutters might work. The British Mountaineering Council's website

has a list of afiliated clubs, which might lead you to someone who could help. Alternatively, you could try posting a note in the UK Climbing forum and see if that finds anyone. Climbers are generally impoverished, so you're likely to find someone who will help you for a few quid :-)

Graham

[Alan J. Wylie]

More often done by cavers than climbers.

Here's a video and a few of my photos from a couple of weekends ago.

'm not sure how practicable this would be. You'd need bolts into the walls at about 1m intervals, and they can't go in too close to the tops of the courses - you need the weight of the bricks on top to stop them being levered out. These days we use glued in "P" hangers, rather than the old rawlbolts / 8mm "Spit" bolts.

[Alan J. Wylie]

The Sahara Desert.

[<me9]

I got scaffolding in, suprisingly cheap, and enabled me to use a water level and string to get the levels right.

Only problem was --- despite thorough checking, I left a bar code sticker on the underside of the fascia, noticed as soon as the scaffolding was removed. I suppose it could have been much worse.

[Jules Richardson]

Y'know, I tried string, but just couldn't get it tight enough over that kind of length to avoid sagging in the middle. Problem with our place is typical US construction, which means nothing ever quite lines up right - so measuring relative to the roof line (which was what I ended up doing) was still a bit trial and error!

It came out OK, and functional, but there are still a couple of spots that are slightly out and bother the perfectionist in me :-)

cheers

Jules

[Grimly Curmudgeon]

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember The Natural Philosopher saying something like:

Dust off the fields, around here, supplemented by the odd volcano.

[Brian Gaff]

OUch, no do not put ladders on gutters, even i if of the metal kind, the brackets are not really up to the job unless you have many of them. Plastic just deforms or cracks. You really do need a stand off. I know from bitter experienc when I could see. Anyone want a cracked gutter?

grin.

Brian

[Kipper at sea]