Gutter Fixings and Ice

[TheScullster]

Hi all

Just general interest Q really. During the severe weather (we had it quite bad at the top of a hill in East Yorkshire), I noticed that a new build house was suffering from detached guttering due to snow/ice load. This is a big detached place and construction methods, quality etc generally look quite good. Our house has the original wood fascias with plastic guttering screwed on. Despite having serious icicles ourselves which reached from the guttering of a 2 storey house down to the upstairs window sills, our guttering all stayed in place.

So the question is: Assuming that this new build has uPVC fascias as well as guttering, are the guttering brackets more likely to come unfixed from uPVC fascias under heavy load? Are the bracket fixing screws threaded simply into the thin fascia? Or was this just one job they hadn't got quite right?

Phil

[Dave Liquorice]

I think you have answered your own question.

The builders have not taken enough care (do they ever?) and simply used ordinary small screws into the plastic facia. Now if they had used decent sized screws and found the ends of the rafters and screwed through the facia into the rafter there probably wouldn't have been a problem.

[ARWadsworth]

very often people only put one screw per bracket when there

My girlfriend knows better than that:-)

[The Medway Handyman]

Spot on! I get quite a lot of re fixing gutter jobs after the snow & ice.

Seems to me guttering is an afterthought & left to the site idiot to fix. Very often 'pops' due to incorrect alignment on the expansion joint and/or has sections that run uphill.

[PeterC]

Woman with 5 men have hands full.

[Harry Bloomfield]

Phil L formulated on Tuesday :

I used three 2.5" brass screws per bracket and one bracket every second rafter, fixed through the facia into the rafter ends.

[Jules Richardson]

I had some plastic guttering with metal brackets[1] - half the supplied screws (each 3" long with a 1/4" hex head) sheared after the first winter in use due to snow/ice load. I tore the lot down and replaced with plastic brackets, which are holding so far - but we'll see how it goes.

[1] they were a bonkers design, such that the screws could never be tightened against the wall, only against the bracket itself - and under heavy snow/ice load the bracket would deform, leaving the screws loose and the gutter free to twist, which would then eventually cause the screws to shear.

cheers

Jules

[Toom Tabard]

Ice load on my 1930s iron guttering was extreme and I expected sections to collapse. It's all survived but strain on bolts/seal between guttering segments has caused water leaks there. I'm now waiting for really heavy rain to find out where all problems are and check for any alignment/overflow problems. 1960s and 1970's houses in area seem to have weaker and softer metal brackets which in some houses got bent down under the weight and long sections of guttering fell off. Some new builds I pass have plastic guttering and brackets. In one or two cases the brackets have either broken or got bent downwards causing lengths of guttering to collapse, but brackets or remaining bits of them still seem securely screwed to facing.

Toom