First though, let’s talk about water. We all know that water
is important to life, and lots of people like seeing it on their vacations,
blah blah blah.
Where would you prefer there not be water though? Survey says, “In your basement!”
The day I looked at Isthmus House, there was water in the
basement. That was an exceptionally rainy spring where pretty much everyone had
water in their basements but I doubted that ours was going away.
After sealing up some cracks in the driveway (thanks to my
dad) and buying one heavy duty dehumidifier, we had pretty minimal water
problems with the exception of one really unpleasant (for me) storm but they
weren’t quite gone. Now, yeah, I need to Drylok my basement and probably make my sump deeper and I’ll get to
that but it’s all for naught if you don’t deal with the origination of the
problem.
Since I can’t (and probably don’t want to) make it stop raining,
I needed to look to the gutters. Turns out, cleaning helped (side note, clean
your gutters every fall and spring) but they were in bad shape and needed to be
replaced.
Gutters are vital
to your home’s health. They move water off of your roof (likely the most
expensive single purchase in any home), off of your siding/brick/trim/etc., and
off of your foundation to more helpful places like your garden. That’s important
to keeping structural integrity – and a clean and dry basement.
So, last fall, I got several bids, narrowed it down and
promptly got busy immediately before one very early first snow. For me, that translated in bad ice dams on the roof this year, getting up to probably 8+ inches in places.
Ice dams happen when there’s hot air under the snow and/or
there’s a warm day here and there. The snow that’s fallen on the roof melts a
bit and then refreezes to ice and stacks up. That can lead to severe roof
damage when the ice takes the path of least resistance and goes under the
shingles and additional gutter damage if it moves out. If your gutters are in
good shape and clean, they’ll generally take care of the runoff from the snow
melting in the first place and you won’t have to deal with things like salt
pucks and socks.
My gutters were already in rough shape but, the day before
my new ones were set to be installed, I found out they were actually separated
from the house in places. Not so great for dealing with excess water I don’t
want damaging my siding, foundation and basement.
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| Yeah, that light near the top of the ladder isn't supposed to be there... |
I was pretty pleased when the crew showed up bright and
early to get to work.
First, they had to detach the old ones without damaging my
roof.
I was hoping against hope that we wouldn’t have any
complications but I didn’t get that lucky this time.
There were a few places where the old crown molding
underneath the gutters had completely rotted out to the point of crumbing at
the touch. We cut those old pieces out and I headed to my favorite local
salvage shop to try to find some old crown molding.
Fortunately, the owner had about 18 feet of molding that was
similar enough to get away with
(covered by the gutters, after all) and we could get back to work with me only
$5 poorer from material acquisition. 
Once the new trim was in its place, the crew got to putting
up the new, seamless gutter.
It’s really pretty cool how they make them. The aluminum (.032
gauge) comes in a big roll that is then molded into the gutter (in my case,
k-style – probably the shape you think of when you think gutters) shape.
It was hard to believe the before/after comparison even on
the ground.
These are bigger troughs with bigger downspouts (3x4” instead of
2x3”) so that they can move about four times as much water off of my
house/siding/foundation without overflowing in a downpour.
They also look pretty
– although that really just means that now I have to paint all of my trim… Glad
that was already in the plans!
So, with our new gutters, I’m hopeful for even less water in
the basement and even more progress outside right around the corner. Stay
tuned!
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