Gutters

[Harman Sanghera]

As I contemplate yet another day on the ladder, clearing out leaves and silt from my gutters, I thought prevention might be a better cure for next year. So, does anyone a) have experience of fitting and using gutter guards (mesh or rigid plastic), and the pitfalls of these in use b) recomend a good on-line source for gutter guards c) tell me how I can access the guttering above where a conservatory has been placed, without having to use scaffolding. The depth of the conservatory means that I can't lean a ladder over the conservatory safely to reach this 2nd floor guttering. TIA

[Bob Minchin]

Yes, they work but only keep leaves out not silt. Screwfix Consider taking out part of the glazing so you can put the ladder through at the correct angle?

Bob

[Mary Fisher]

We have this problem over a carport the length of the house. We're having aluminium guttering fitted next February.

Our solution is to have crawlboards to hold a short ladder. The boards will be attached to the wall by ropes through eyes fitted into the brickwork so that they don't slip down the sloping roof of the carport.

Mary

[Lawrence]

The set of plumbing rods I have came with a drop scraper for gutters. So you can climb your ladder and clear from the side. Useefull even for accessible as you can clear safely a couple of metres either side of you.

Would this approach work?

Lawrence

usenet at lklyne dt co dt uk

[The Natural Philosopher]

IME anything the srtops leavs getting in, stops them exactly where the water needs to get in, making the whole idea of gutters useless.

I suppose you COULD put chickemn wite a foot above the hwole roof...but then in tme it would get cobered with leaves, and the water would run off the mesh instead.

pressure wash your gutters, or take them down.

[Huge]

[Please don't top post]

Is *that* what that's for!? The drain man said never to put it down the drains because it gets stuck & you can't get them out. I hadn't thought it might be for gutters.

[Nick Finnigan]

I was, er, lucky enough to be able to just reach the gutter whilst standing on the window cills. That was with a lean-to tiled roof below rather than glass.

Could you stop the problem at source, if there are trees over 20' high near to your house?

[BillR]

I can throughly recommend the superior gutterguard system made by

you its a non-trival job to fit it. I had to lower my gutters by 60mm. I've fitted it to my house and detached garage as I've got fed up with clearing out shed loads of leaves from 3 oak trees near me.

[BillR]

How? by cutting them down? I wish I could, but there is are TPOs on the trees affecting my property.

[Biscuit]

Bought 150m worth of plastic guards from Screwfix. However I fitted them not horizontally over the gutter (as per instructions) but at an angle, by tucking one edge of the guard under the roof tile and other edge just shy of the outer gutter edge. This was to avoid the water simply running of the roof and across the guard to then drip on the outside edge of the gutter.

Being in a wooded area with +150ft trees, the gutters needed to be cleaned 3 to 4 times a year. Now It's only once a year to clean the gutter and 2 twice to remove the silt and fallen moss collected around the inner guards (1/2" chicken wire) installed over the down pipe entrance......

[BillR]

Thats the basic principle of the Permaflow system. I've never had to clear out the gutters after fitting them and I'm plagued huge oak trees near my house too. This is good on a gutter that is difficult to get to, like hanging over my neighbour's garden. Now the leaves from his trees just fall back onto his property instead of blocking my gutter.

[Harman Sanghera]

----- Original Message ----- From: "Bob Minchin" Newsgroups: uk.d-i-y Sent: Thursday, December 04, 2003 8:55 PM Subject: Re: Gutters

Thanks. The conservatory is a white uPVC effort with sloping plycarbonate panels in the roof part. Is there a standard way I can take out these panels? (There are black rubber seals on two edges of each panel, one edge has some sort of clear silicone sealant, and I can't see the 4th edge as it is obscured by some white uPVC in the centre of the roof.)