Originally Posted by
Jim Matthews
Without a gutter on my Saltbox overhang, the rain dropped directly onto my bulkhead and basement windows.
Basement flooding is expensive.
One story ranch, 2’ overhang, fiberboard lap siding, basement bulkhead entrance. Four very large maples and an oak within 30 feet of the roof. When we purchased the house the gutters had those vinyl type gutter screens.
Still had to clean the gutters, downspouts still occasionally clogged, still had an occasional water problem in the basement, lower courses of siding and corner joints had water damage.
Vinyl siding,wrapped all the windows, new roof, weatherstripping on bulkhead doors.
Regrade the 6’ adjacent to the foundation wall.
Covered with 2 layers of 8 mil plastic.
French drain integrated at the bottom of the 6’ slope
Covered with 2” decorative river rock
No gutters.
-The bulkhead was watertight, no issues.
-The vinyl siding was not affected by any additional water contact
-Additional ice on our steps was not an issue. The original gutters only extended about 5 inches from the roof, so our steps were getting wet anyway. Whether they were hit with a gallon of cold water a minute or a gallon an hour, the amount of water staying on the steps was the same.
-No more water issues in the basement, ever. That included a storm system in ’96? that dumped 14” of rain in three days.
All fauna (my wife’s hobby) was in large decorative pots and planters so as to not compromise the visqueen (those pots are not inexpensive by the way, but neither were some of my tools, so that was a wash). And, it allowed her to rearrange her plant layout as if she was rearranging the furniture (not sure if that was a plus or a minus... some of those were heavy).
-Every fall it would be covered in leaves which would have decomposed to form dirt, but the 2” rock was heavy enough to sustain the force of a corded leaf blower and all the leaves were blown off periodically. After maybe 10 years we noticed a couple of dandelions. As Jim mentioned a couple of squirts of weed killer, later years a pre-emergent as part of the regular lawn maintenance, solved that.
After about 20 years I had need to trench along a section to run conduit. The top layer of plastic was brittle, the bottom was in pristine condition.
The only negative was walking through a sheet of rain instead of a dribble when exiting the house from the front door. But with an attached garage that was rare. An umbrella solved that problem.
It worked effectively for over twenty years. When we decided to move our realtor told us it didn’t matter how effective the system was, no house in Iowa without gutters would sell. We had seamless gutters installed the first week in October, just as the leaves were dropping. I was cleaning out the gutters a couple of weeks later.
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