getting our minds out of the gutter
Generally, I was never a fan of gutters. I never wanted to add to Michael’s project list, “clean gutters”. So although I could see the rain drilling a hole into the driveway, I didn’t care enough to do anything about it. I certainly wasn’t going to pay to install them. Even with our first rain barrel, we managed to put it in a spot where the roof eaves meet and manage to fill the barrel quickly in any storm.
So why get gutters?
You can see the little black divot holes being drilled into my new patio. :-(
When we moved into the house, there were innumerable projects to be completed both inside and out. The house had been used a rental property by the previous owners for years, so suffice it say, they hadn’t done much with the place. We prioritized making the front walk and the backyard accessible to me. Since I use a wheelchair, this is critical. Also, living in New England with gray, cold winters meant we wanted to be able to spend as much time outdoors as possible. So we installed a patio so I could move around outdoors freely. See more about the patio and walkway install at “walkway that’s a ramp, if you’re so inclined”. Yeah, I’m punny.
You can see the original gutter we installed over the door to protect it from splash back of rain on the ramp. The siding contractor wrapped in the siding sheeting and you can’t even tell it’s there.
We had already put a small section of gutter over the back door. This was necessitated by the fact there was rot caused by the splash back from the ramp onto the bottom of the door and the sill plate. We’d already replaced the entire wall once when we realized the entire door frame was rotten due to the previous owners deferred maintenance. I didn’t want to replace it again. Plus we were installing new floors, so I didn’t want those damaged as well.
What finally pushed us to have a gutter installed over the entire length of the back of the house was that rain pouring off the roof was starting to drill holes into our brand new patio. Once we realized that, it was a no-brainer. We had to protect the investment of the patio as soon as possible.
Installation
As usual, I looked into several contractors, vetted them using Google reviews, Facebook reviews, and other word of mouth reviews. Also as usual, we got a variety of pricing. Living in a high-income area has its benefits, but finding reasonable contractor pricing is not one of them. A lot of times, contractors give us what the neighbors call “Andover pricing”, meaning they assume we’re rich and pad the price they give us. It’s infuriating.
Luckily, we found a locally owned, small business owner that was not only great to work with, but offered us a reasonable price. If you’re in the New England area, I highly recommend Gutter Docs for your project. Side story: Within days of installation, the guys that mow the lawn did not see the new gutter drain in the tall grass. Subsequently, the ran it over, ripped it the house, and twisted it beyond repair. The good news: Gutter Docs has GREAT customer service and a few days later, they came out and fixed it for us in the rain.
Mangled gutter pipe after the lawn mower ran over the spout.
The gutter runs the full length of the back of the house. On one side of the house, we have a traditional down spout. On the other side, we have a rain barrel from the Great American Rain Barrel community program. You can get discounted rain barrels through your local municipality at a discount. We already have one barrel out front and it saved us during many a dry season. We will empty the rain barrel and store it in the shed in the winter. We have extra gutter to get to the ground during the winter and spring until it’s safe to put the rain barrel back out.
For the color of our gutters, we chose black. We will eventually be replacing all our windows and I love the black frame window look. We’ve been moving our 1960s ranch towards a more modern look and the black gutter blends in nicely with the rest of the house and black fence.
Let me know what you think!
