A architect/builder of Craftsman and Arts and Crafts houses in my area dislikes the look of gutters. He typically has an 18-24″ overhang at the edges.
When it comes to ground drainage system, should special precautions be taken over and above normal to ensure a dry house.
I live in Washington DC, where downpours are frequent.
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Replies
I also despise gutters, and am not putting them on my current house.
I am using 36" eaves, and 24" gable overhangs.
The whole system needs as much thought and planning as a well done gutter system, if not more.
Ground slope should be at least 1% for the first 10 feet or so away from the foundation, and you can install a french drain at the drip line, as another good step.
Landscaping and beds should be mulched with gravel or something else that won't wash away, and small hearty plants right in the dripline, can also help.
Hopefully an archi conscientous enough to not want gutters, would also follow through with designing a whole system that will work instead of gutters.
mac.... i never put gutters on our houses unless i am forced to
i always design large overhangs and good drainage Mike Smith Rhode Island : Design / Build / Repair / Restore
Same here in the trees in NW Oh. I put the money and thought in the ground surrounding the house. Doesn't hurt that I'm in the hill on the way to the river. Even with gutters it's good waterproofing and finding a way to move the water.
Besides the dripline, don't forget to deal with the entry points of the house-strategic dormers, awnings etc.
A great place for Information, Comraderie, and a sucker punch.
Remodeling Contractor just outside the Glass City.
http://www.quittintime.com/
Size of overhang doesn't reduce the amount of water hitting the ground. There is a product that is attached to the fascia that (for lack of a better word) "disperses" the water more so that it isn't hitting the ground in one spot. If the overhang is significant enough to keep the water coming back to the foundation, this product might do the trick for you.
Dave
Rain Handler, I think ....
I hate gutters. They are a great thing to avoid. Good roof design places water runoff wheere it does not damage a house. Spill zones, landscaping, under ground drainage and grading do the rest.
Gutter disadvantages include:
poor appearance trending to junky appearance as years go by
maintainance hassles of cleaning them twice a year.
they encourage more ice damming
They make it hard to paint behind so that paint on fascia is too often neglected leading to early rot
IMO, gutters cause more problems than they solve.
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I guess it depends upon where you live and what you wish to grow below the eave and what staining you want on your walls.
I gotta support Piffin:
"Good roof design places water runoff wheere it does not damage a house. Spill zones, landscaping, under ground drainage and grading do the rest."
His first three words say it all.
You are right there. If you live in the red clay of Georgia or Carolina in lowlands, that clay can stain a house.
And the sites are so falt it costs money to grade drainage away from the house.
And it costs more than some people are willing to pay to use pretty shrubbery and to feed and mulch it.
And new subdivisions don't have trees big enough top drop any leaves in the gutters to warrant cleaning them anyways.You're right - absolutely, there are places where a mobile home is the only way to go too.
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picture is big, dont know how to resizeBut here what I did. we get 60 inches per year so I poured a concrete arpon around the house so the rain water will hit the concrete instead of washing away dirt.
I hate gutters too, but don't you need them if you have a basement? I would love to get rid of mine. I don't really like the basement either.
i design our homes from 12" under the basement slab to the peak with no gutters...
if you make provisions for good drainage away from the house , then wether or not there is a basement is not part of the problem
sometimes we have to include gutters, for one reason or another. but most of the time we design our way around itMike Smith Rhode Island : Design / Build / Repair / Restore
At what level is your French drain then? Do you place it below the level of the basement floor? How do you get the water out, use a pump? I'm building a Craftsman with no gutters, and have been pondering whether or not to build a basement, so it would really help to know more about this. Thanks.
we have high water tables and heavy clay soil...
i overdig my basements 12" and install 12" of 3/4 stone with 4" pipes in the interior os the footing
the stone extends past the footing and we cover the exterior with filter fabric
on the interior, the 4" pipes are pitched to a drain-to-daylight if the lot slopes to an apropriate place.. or they pitch to a sump pit and we pump it..
you have to figure a place to pump it to so you will not create a nusiance
Mike Smith Rhode Island : Design / Build / Repair / Restore
We have a walkout basement-lower living area. I put pipe on the inside, next to the footing and ran that outside-serves as a passive radon drain while you're at it. Then also next to the footing outside and ran that to daylight at both sides of the downhill side. Waterproofed the foundation with a system called Warm and Dry (at the time). It's still available but there was a name change. Koch may be the company that owns the rights now. Rigid fibreglass over the water proofing, wicks the water down the outside of it to the footer where it's taken away by the drain. Fabric cloth or sleeve on the pipe and total stone backfill is the proper detail.
Living in the woods with mostly locust and walnut, small leaves would be a major headache. Another positive-no big concentration of water at various pts along the foundation.
After 18 yrs, bone dry on the deep dug side (uphill), no dampness or mold. And since we are the last stop on the way down the hill to the river, it is working exactly as planned.
Only drawback would be on a hip roofed house, keeping yourself dry when you exit the door. 2 ft overhangs help. A strategic dormer or awning might be necessary.
Best of luck on your new place.A great place for Information, Comraderie, and a sucker punch.
Remodeling Contractor just outside the Glass City.
http://www.quittintime.com/
I am no expert, like the others here, but it is my understanding that it is now possible to build a waterproof basement if you have new const.
Congrats. on building a new house. It must be exciting.
We keep water out of basements by waterproofing the foundation, providing a drainagae path for groundwater, and grading soil so surface water flows away from the house rather than towards it. Gutters are the last ditch effort to control water if good design and planning is neglected.
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A lot depends on weather conditions, soil conditions, ground slope, etc. Around here, if you don't have gutters then a gully will develop at the drip line within a couple of years. Nothing will grow within a foot or two, due apparently to nutrients being leached from the soil.
Ever hear of landscaping with shrubbery and bark mulch? It stops that from happening.
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Yeah, landscaping is a way to handle the problem. Some folks don't like having 4 feet of gravel all the way around the house, however.
So convenient a thing it is to be a reasonable Creature, since it enables one to find or make a Reason for everything one has a mind to do. --Benjamin Franklin
Ever see desert landscaping?
But I never mentioned gravel
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What would you recommend? Any sort of planting will be killed by the water. Bark will wash away.
So convenient a thing it is to be a reasonable Creature, since it enables one to find or make a Reason for everything one has a mind to do. --Benjamin Franklin
I'm not a vegetarian or landscaper, but there are pros who do this all the time.
I don't know how it is that you assert what you do when I see hundreds of houses here done the way I said and shrubbery doing just fine and bark not washing away. Quit using such wimpy bark! Get it off trees where the bark is worse than its bite.
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I don't see it done here. Gutters are the norm. Where there aren't gutters, nothing grows.
So convenient a thing it is to be a reasonable Creature, since it enables one to find or make a Reason for everything one has a mind to do. --Benjamin Franklin
I remember we had this discussion a few years ago - one of the more prominent and respected posters here at BT said "my landscaping is fine with no gutters" or something similar. He posted a pic. His idea of landscaping was grass - and that's it. OK - maybe there were 2 bushes. It looked ridiculous. Granted, he actually did get vegetation to grow with no gutters, but the pic looked like "we built a great house but ran out of money at the end so just threw some seed out".
I'm with you. I want to see the pics of houses with no gutters, nice (real) landscaping, and in an area with at least 40" of rain a year.
For a little amusement look at this web page: http://www.fi.edu/school/math/showers.html When you get 4' (yes that's feet!) of rain in a day I don't think it matters what provisions you have made to deal with runoff. :-)
Around here you can't get grass to grow without gutters.
So convenient a thing it is to be a reasonable Creature, since it enables one to find or make a Reason for everything one has a mind to do. --Benjamin Franklin
matt... your version of "real" landscaping is your version...
after 30 years of fighting with overgrown shrubs that ruin the house, i won't have them
so .. i would bet that you are talking about me..
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if so.. maybe you should reflect on different "landscaping".. show me some historical colonial homes with your shrubs planted across the front
most of the ones i've seen have brick , or grass, or stone... no shrubs....
of course .. Helen might agree with you.... but it is a solar home.. so our north shading has always inhibited those two lonely PJM rhodies next to the steps...
so.. we plant grass right up to the foundation.. on the south side we have a flower bed
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and the garden shed ( no gutters ) is surrounded and masked by your "landscaping"
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so.... if you want a bunch of shrubs, or you don't like the way others landscape.. at least stop and think that maybe you are projecting
now when, you have an ugly front... and you want to hide the architectural features , then shrubs are the usual answer...
but anyways, that's neither here, nor there.... i can build homes with lots of shrubs ( they bring in landscapers and give them $50,000 to plant shrubs )....... they also have no gutters...
here's a typical fall shot of the front... you can just see the tiny trench the drip line excavates.... then the grass stands up and you can't see the trench in the summer
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we get 40 - 45 " of rain..
last week we got 3" in two hours.... next week i have to go rake the gullies out of our gravel / stone topped driveway ... no asphalt either
Mike Smith Rhode Island : Design / Build / Repair / Restore
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You don't need all of those shrubs with a nice foundation wall. I wouldn't dream of covering up my beautiful river rock basement walls. But I do want to lose the gutters. Of course I have wide eaves and a drainage system in place to support it....that's not a mistake, it's rustic
You can see a definite drip line in that last picture. Over time the line gets deeper and wider. And it will be worse if there's a substantial slope to the soil (since the slope eliminates any puddle that would protect the soil from drip impact).
So convenient a thing it is to be a reasonable Creature, since it enables one to find or make a Reason for everything one has a mind to do. --Benjamin Franklin
dan...
<<<<<You can see a definite drip line in that last picture. Over time the line gets deeper and wider. And it will be worse if there's a substantial slope to the soil (since the slope eliminates any puddle that would protect the soil from drip impact).>>>>
grass right up to the foundation is a fairly regular tactic of mine
that picture is of a 20 year old house....
the line doesn't get deeper and wider
sometimes.. we will sod the perimeter and plant grass seed on the rest of the lawn , just so the drip area doesn't get overwhelmed..
the sod can resist the drip quite well.. and actually thrives on the drip
Mike Smith Rhode Island : Design / Build / Repair / Restore
Around here that picture would represent the situation after 2-3 years, and it would continue to get worse. Not sure what causes the difference.
So convenient a thing it is to be a reasonable Creature, since it enables one to find or make a Reason for everything one has a mind to do. --Benjamin Franklin
Dan,
I agree with you. That's happened to me.
But after living in 4 different places around the country over the last 10 years tells me Mike is right.
My similar problems were based upon the sandy soil of the site coupled with slopes for the eroded soil to run off. Further complicated from being poor and unable to afford proper lanscaping. If you look at his pic again, you'll see a slight grade, but not a great one that facilitates runoff.
But my present house S. of Denver has an surrounding apron of fabric covered by washed 1 - 2" stones. From place to place, there's a bush thrown in for apperance. It also has heavy clay soil.
It's got gutters too, but they've only been a cost item:
1500 for realignment after very heavy snows bent them down.
12,500 for wall repair where the original gutters were installed before the exterior being completed with EIPS stucco. The gutter end rotted out from accumulating leaves and then leaked water behind the stucco directly into the walls over several years.
And I still gotta find a way to paint behind them.
But in S. Cal, gutters were absolutely necessary. Although there is less rain, when it does come, it comes hard and will severely erode due to the slopes. Plus, it's necessary to keep the water from soaking into the soil, giving basis for mudslides of their clay soil. That soaked in water also causes havoc with their ceement hardscapes during the dry season. Therefore you see alot of pavers there.
Here we pretty much universally have 2-foot eaves (except on the hoity-toity multi-story homes with 12/12 roofs), meaning that any rock treatment would have to extend out from the house about three feet, maybe four. Not sure to what extent the eaves are a practical matter vs tradition (prairie style), but I kinda like the way they look.Re snow damage, it's rare here. A heavy snow is ten inches. There is often ice damming in homes that are less well-constructed, but with the wide eaves the dam is occurring above the gutters, and, while the gutters are often accused of causing it, they don't really.The lot in that pic was dead flat compared to most lots around here. North side of our lot rolls off at about a 30-degree angle -- darn hard to mow.
So convenient a thing it is to be a reasonable Creature, since it enables one to find or make a Reason for everything one has a mind to do. --Benjamin Franklin
My rock treatment weaves around the house, sometimes as slose as 3', others as much as 20' where a bed around a tree comes into play. It's layout is an intragal part of the whole landscape plan.
Perhaps where you say your slope gets going, you could put in some stone retaining wall and run the rock treatment thru that.
Within the rock layout, you could put little islands of a rose, tomatoes, whatever, direct the runoff towards them.
It's the NORTH side of the house. We're lucky to get moss to grow there, much less roses.We do have the front of the house (gable end, so no gutter issue either way) fixed up with plantings surrounded by shredded cypress. (We had rock once and didn't like it, and the cypress stays put a lot better than bark.) Plus a large tiered flower garden in the back corner of the back yard, designed in part to help control the floodwater that washes down the back property line.The only sizeable place we don't have gutters is on the north side, towards the west. There's about 6 feet of the regular roof beyond the chimney that isn't guttered and then a 10-foot deck roof made of corrugated fiberglass. These are the areas that are in a state of constant erosion. Thankfully the builder left gravelly soil about 6 inches down, so the erosion kind of slows down once it gets that far.
So convenient a thing it is to be a reasonable Creature, since it enables one to find or make a Reason for everything one has a mind to do. --Benjamin Franklin
Mike:
You have some nice plants in your back yard. Other than that, we will have agree to disagree on the landscaping appearance issue.
matt.. if we could only see oursels as others see us...
so maybe i'll have my digger bring over some nice rhody's before we list the house in the spring...
i said ... maybe... all right ?
after all... that's what buyers want... and i won't have to fight with the shrubs.. the new owners will
.... guess what.. new owners will probably put gutters on the house too... after all.. everyone knows ... you need guttersMike Smith Rhode Island : Design / Build / Repair / Restore
Please provide pictures to back up your point.
Then we could get an idea of how these landscapes are designed.
That'll have to wait for spring.
You think I'm lying or just need a how-to photolouge?
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i live in Texas where water shortages are getting worse and are going to be a fact of life for a lot of people. Rain water collection is one way to help solve this problem, my wife really likes the iddea, so that makes gutters a requirement.
My soon to be house is 2,200 sq. ft. with lots of porches, a large garage, and about a 3' overhang all around everything, which brings the total roof area to almost 5,000 sq. ft. - making rain water collection feasible for an area that is supposed to get an average of 32 inches of rain a year (which hasn't happened for the last couple of years).
So, anybody have good experiences with gutter helmet or other similar products?
Edited 3/9/2007 9:22 am ET by paul42
paul.. good point ... in the West Indies and Bermuda, Bahammas...etc..
lots of drinking water is collected from roof systems
BTW...
<<<32 inches of rain a month >>>.... 384 inches of rain a year ?????????.... c'mon
Mike Smith Rhode Island : Design / Build / Repair / Restore
your right, too early in the morning - 32 inches of rain a year
on the 5,000 sq. ft. that gives about 80,000 gallons of water on an average year.
Here's a real quandry.
I also hate the maintainance and look of gutters. But due to brackish subsurface water and 1/2 mile of solid rock to the nearest water main I need to collect & store roof runoff for household use. We have plenty of rainfall in eastern Oklahoma in 90% of years and plenty of water haulers for fill in.
Any thoughts on alternative collection systems. BTW soil/rock won't hold surface pond water.
As usual, there aren't any good cheap answers.
If you are aiming for potable water, the most economical choices are either a large cement tank, or a collection of large plastic ones. The best price I have found so far is about $.35 a gallon for long term potable water storage.
Potable water also requires some fairly extensive filtering as well, including UV lights.
I've done some research, lots more to go
http://www.conservationtechnology.com/downloads/RainwaterSystems.pdf
http://www.tank-depot.com/
some books
Rainwater Collection for the Mechanically Challenged
Water Storage: Tanks, Cisterns, Aquifers, and Ponds for Domestic Supply, Fire and Emergency Use--Includes How to Make Ferrocement Water Tanks
Paul,
That's a great information source. My plan is to put 5000gal tank inside new shop building then use conventional pressure pump to a typical well type 200gal pressure tank.
The filters are great info.
I would still like to find something other than gutters for collection, but don't have faintest idea what.
Something else I found interesting, here in OK we cannot use seperate "gray water" system for part of house waste. Everything must be treated; ie septic,etc.
The idea of using collected rain water for irrigation has always intrigued me. Is your application going to be for irrigation or domestic (potable) water?
A 5000 gallon tank though could weigh in excess of 40,000 lbs. I wonder what the footer design would be to support that? I guess the tank would be rather large too - like maybe the size of a pickup truck? Does it really need to be inside? Not sure what climate you live in.
It's not at all uncomon to put flat bottom liquid storeage tanks on bare ground as the load is uniformally distributed.
A typical 5000gal tank might be about 10' dia & 8' high.
Reason for putting it inside is to forstall alge growth- freezing not a problem in my area. Reason for above 1) too much rock to bury like a cistern 2) easier to clean residue from bottom of tank.
This will be for potable water with appropriate filters, sterilization & down stream pressure system.
BTW this is a rural site. not subject to city codes.
Matt-There is an architecture firm there in Raleigh (701 N. Person St.) that has a green roof that filters the water and the excess goes to what looks like a big galvanized tank. (pics at http://www.ncgreenbuilding.org/site/ncg/public/show_project.cfm?project_id=66 )Maybe you could bug them about what they did for a footing for the tank.I hears a presentation from one of the owners maybe 2 years ago any he really wanted to share what he could from the experience.I moved from NC to NH this January, and here I see no issue with drip lines, but plenty of shrubs crushed by roof avalanches. I would think that might partly account for some regional differences.-jim
Jimmy:
I looked at the site. I only have a passing interest in capturing roof runoff for irrigation. I checked into the cost of a tank some time ago and they 'aint cheap'.
By my calculations the tank the previous poster was talking about would exert around 170 lbs per sq ft. Granted, this could sit on the ground provided that the soil was very uniform and firm. For the thing to be inside though that would kind of insinuate that it would sit on a floor system - concrete slab I suppose, but I wouldn't put that kind of weight on any slab I (had) poured unless it was beefed up pretty good.
What made you move to NH?
Re roof avalanches, do many of the houses there have those metal brackets on the roof to hold the snow/ice, or is that pretty much just an antique kind of thing?
Matt-I would agree that for most construction in most of the US capturing rainwater is not cost effective - storage space for slightly dirty water at a buck a gallon vs. clean water at a couple of gallons for a penny means you have to store and use a lot of water for it to pay off. On the other hand, it is easy to run the numbers to show that most Prius owners will never see that pay off either, but Toyota is making a mint selling Priuss (Prii?) to people willing to pay to much to look "green".On the other hand, my brother is building west of Chapel Hill in an area that allows only 5% impermeable surface for rainwater runoff, and his long gravel driveway (considered impermeable by Orange county) puts him right at the edge. I can see how in some places capturing roof runoff might be the difference between a buildable lot and an empty lot, and so pay off.-----I do see the snow/ice stopping brackets in places, also heated strips, borders of copper that may or may not be heated, heaters in downspouts, as well as unmitigated avalanches. It doesn't seem to much correlate to the age, size, or upkeep of the home, so I can only guess that is comes down to whether or not someone in the last 250 years thought it was important enough to do.-----I moved to NH because the company I was working for got bought and my DW though it was easier to pick up and move 750 miles than to put up with me jobless for a while. (some people claim that there's a woman to blame...) And they say it is really nice here in the summer - both days!-jim
Matt,
1) set it on compacted fill. No concreate.
2) Tank system is a lot cheaper than 1/2 mile 2" line thru solid rock & 350' elevation.
jim
A roof is generally the best collection surface, since it's elevated above much of the bugs, critters, and dust that can cause contamination. Otherwise you can build a sort of dry pond (using landscape pond techniques, eg) on a hill to channel water to a collecting point.For storage a concrete tank (precast or cast in place) is the traditional favorite, either in the ground, in a basement, or, eg, under a porch or patio (allowing it to be fully or partially above ground). I'm guessing these are often lined with some sort of rubber or plastic now, though years ago they were plain concrete or maybe tarred.Plastic tanks of various sizes are certainly available. Potable water tanks appear to run about $0.75-1.00 per gallon, and tanks not rated for potable water appear to start around $0.40 a gallon, based on a quick Google. (Of course, shipping costs would add to that.) Can't find any ballpark pricing info for concrete.An advantage of concrete is that they're less apt to float out of the ground and away in a flood, though if you have your rainwater collection working any tank should fill before this can happen.You can also, of course, create a tank by digging a hole, shoring up the sides somehow, and lining with plastic. (Covering it is left as an exercise for the reader.)
So convenient a thing it is to be a reasonable Creature, since it enables one to find or make a Reason for everything one has a mind to do. --Benjamin Franklin
Now that makes sense.
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I'm reasonably satisfied with the plastic screen sections that snap onto K gutters. They're cheap and reasonably easy to install. The older ones just had a coarse molded grid and would let small seeds pass through (maple seeds would get partway through and stick until the "wings" rotted off). Newer ones have a piece of fine screen attached on top so virtually everything is shed.
So convenient a thing it is to be a reasonable Creature, since it enables one to find or make a Reason for everything one has a mind to do. --Benjamin Franklin
My house is a former one-room school and has crown molding from the fascia to the under side of the roof deck. No way was I gonna hide that with gutters!
I dug a shallow (6-8") swale about 2 feet wide under the drip line and lined it with EPDM pond liner. 4" perf pipe in the bottom with washed 2 stone to cover the pipe and liner. Works great. 4-6' planting beds outside of that.
Bear