My Mind is in the Gutters

Just filling up the hot tub

*Insert waterfront property joke here*

In the, what seems like, never ending battle to keep water out of our basement we have finally rectified the biggest cause of the problem, getting gutters installed. Our roof is probably 1500-1700 square feet and for the past 200 years, when it rains, water is just washing directly off it and down to the foundation then into the basement. When we purchased the house we were told of 'minor seepage during heavy rain'. That minor seepage turned into the basement filling with water whenever a weather reporter thought of precipitation.

This level of water would usually occur within 15 minutes of water pouring forth from the heavens. After a serious deluge a third of the basement would be standing water. I can only imagine that if we had several days of rain the house would just lift off the foundation and float away, conveniently giving me easy access to repair the rotted sill plate.

For Sale: One barely used luxury cruise liner. Minor seepage in the hull.

As you can tell from previous posts, I have no problem trying to DIY my way through projects that are generally considered as 'leave it to the professionals'. In this circumstance though I decided to hire out. Yes I could have purchased the kits from the home improvement store and done it myself. Those only come in 10 foot sections though and when you have 140 feet of roof sides, that is 14 more leaky seams than I need in my life. That is where the seamless gutters come into play. Unfortunately I was at work, but I hear that a truck pulled up and just shot out 140 feet of solid aluminum gutters in about 5 minutes. The word 'extrude' was used and that makes it all worth it.

You can see the slight bend in the middle that matches the house

The interesting part about using professionals is that they show up with more than one person and those people know what they are doing. How novel. 

It isn't as interesting as watching me do a project. Generally I get halfway through something and am holding up my 'project' and then need a tool that I probably don't even own. At that point I am trying to stretch and reach the closest item that now becomes exactly what I need to finish. The saying goes 'When all you have is a hammer, every problem is a nail'. My saying is 'Whatever problem you have can be solved by the closest thing to you at the time'.

These poor workers had no idea they were going to be working on the Porter House. They probably woke up the morning and said to themselves 'I am going to get to work, install some gutters, have my lunch, clean up, go home, and be satisfied with my life.' No no no no, that isn't how things work around here. They told me that they needed to do some 'slight prep work' before they hung the gutters. This prep work lasted about 3 minutes before they were battling several nests of angry bees.

The bees had overheard that we were coming and had prepared for battle

This was the first thing they had to deal with. If I got to work and the first thing I needed to do was try and fight off a swarm of bees just to get to the office I would go home and call in sick, or just quit, I don't know.

After quelling the uprising they also had to chase out a bird that had nested inside some decorative trim and close it up. I'm sure the bird had squatters rights but I doubt it will be able to file a claim. 

It really isn't as bad as it looks. That is what I told them at least.

Totaling up, their 'prep work' lasted most of the day and included fighting bees, making a bird homeless, cutting away warped facia board, fixing the reason the facia was warped, sealing the facia with aluminum, fighting more bees, and more things that I can't even imagine. It was so much work that they only were able to hang one of three sets of gutters on the first day, no downspouts.

They were really good about it though, showed up the next morning and finished everything up. We now have diverted all the roof water away from the foundation. We even had a 24 hour rainstorm and the basement stayed dry! Apparently all Nixon needed was some gutters and he would have been set.

la Fin

- The Porter -