Realigning guttering

[Theo]

We have a single-storey pitched roof that falls down to gutters. The gutter falls from right to left across the ~10m wide wall. At the left corner there's a downpipe, a water butt connection, and then an angled piece of drainpipe to take the water into an external kitchen drain that's roughly in the middle of the wall.

I'm thinking of rejigging this so the gutters drain into a downpipe in the middle that leads more-or-less directly towards the drain (well, slightly offset to go around a window immediately above the drain).

Any pitfalls to expect doing this? Is there neat way to make a piece of guttering fall in the opposite direction without drilling new holes in the fascia for brackets slightly higher up? Can you maybe get brackets of variable height or something?

Thanks Theo

[newshound]

There's a standard type of variable height bracket. One part is basically a length of galvanised steel strip (about 20 x 5 mm at a guess). This normally comes with a "point" at one end, you drill a pilot hole in a mortar course and hammer it in horizontally. Or, you can bend it at 90 degrees as required, drill two suitable holes in the wall and plug and screw. The other part is a semicircular steel strip that fits under the guttering, with a length of studding welded in the middle. The studding goes vertically through a suitable hole in the first bit of strip, and height is adjusted with the aid of two nuts (one each side of the horizontal strip).

This is a good way to do it if the vertical height of the facias is not large enough, or perhaps if the facias are showing signs of age.

[Theo]

The fascia is quite new and I'd like to avoid drilling extra holes in it, hence the question. There's sufficient overhang such that it wouldn't be possible to fix guttering into the brick. Do adjustable brackets like this exist for attachment to the fascia? It would need to be white to match the PVC guttering, rather than bare metal.

Theo

[Roger Hayter]

The holes tend to be at the top of the ordinary plastic brackets, so if, as makes sense, you are leaving the high side the same and raising the low side progressively from the centre the brackets will cover the old screw holes. This seems to me by far the easiest way to do it.

[alan_m]

Is there a standard for guttering? My limited experience of trying to add or modify (old) existing guttering with similar parts from the sheds has resulted in the parts from one manufacturer not fitting parts for another manufacturer without some bodging.

[alan_m]

You may be able to drill the extra hole in the bracket(s) to raise the pipe by perhaps an inch using the existing fixing hole in the fascia.

[Andrew]

Even if the new bracket position is an inch or so away from its original location, the gutter itself will hide the original hole.

Bostic used to sell an acetone-based white UPVC filler which was very effective, but I think it has been discontinued. A blob of white silicone sealer carefully smoothed before it skins over should hide them.

[Andrew]

[Theo]

Thanks. I shall take a look and see what we have.

Theo

[Andrew]

The only stuff I would avoid is Hunter plastics, as sold in Wickes. The connectors are very difficult to 'snap' into the locked position, something you don't want to do at the top of a ladder.

[Theo]

It turns out that we have the Freeflow Square Line system, the bracket being FRS609:

It appears the derating for a 5m gutter with the outlet at the end isn't so bad:

Level gutter: 1.10 litres/sec

1:600 gradient: 1.55 litres/sec

so it is possible I might get away with just repositioning the downpipe if the existing gradient - which isn't obvious by looking at it - is flat enough.

If that doesn't work, I might have to make up some shims to slide the brackets up and down, or to drill extra holes in the brackets to realign.

Another one for the todo list...

Theo