We installed a metal roof on our home (we love the sound of rain on it.) and had seamless gutters installed. The roof pitch is 9/12 then 4/12 over the porch. The gutters are mounted such that the rain–which is racing to the eaves at warp 9–flies right over the gutters. Is there a proper position for gutters?
Snow has not been a problem because of the bars that hold it back. Nice architectural detail, BTW, adding some horizontal lines to the roof.
Someone should write an article on proper gutter placement for metal roofs.
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I think gutters postioned about 5 feet out from the roof edge is about right for metal.
But you do see the same problem with asphalt shingles in a heavy rain, unless the gutters are mounted quite high. Basically, to prevent this the front edge of the gutter needs to be placed high enough so that a yardstick layed on the rooftop would nearly touch the outside edge of the gutter. Unfortunately, on a long gutter run it's difficult to maintain high enough placement for the entire run and still achieve decent slope.
Someone may make pieces of curved metal that could be applied to the roof edge to "draw" the water downward.
Or else something similar to the snow blocks that slows the water as it nears the edge.
4" or 5" gutters?
4" or 5" gutters?
We've got a metal roof at 10/12 pitch. I'm eyeballing the gutters right now and I'd say they are about 5" wide, and there is about 2" of drop from the roof edge to the top of the gutter. I can take some pics if it would help.
As for water landing in the gutters, there are no problems with most pitches. At times, during an über-strong storm the valleys will overshoot the gutters, but that's unusual.
Your gutters may be too small. Some pics would help.
Lay a straight edge on the roof. Position the gutters so the bottom edge of the straight edge goes in line with the center of the gutter. The type of gutter hanger can limit where the gutters can be attached. The universal types for aluminum gutters can get attached right up tight against the drip edge which usually places the gutters high enough.
We had a similar situation. I've forgotten what the pitch of our roof is, but it's pretty steep, and we had a steel roof installed last year. The only problem we experienced was with the valleys formed between the main roof and a gabled porch roof. First time we had a heavy rain, the water shot down the slick metal valleys and overshot the gutters like a rifle shot. We called the roofer (obviously) and he installed blocking pieces (not sure what their real name is, and not sure of the material, either; the rest of the gutter system is made of plastic (Panasonic; typical for Japan). The blocking pieces do their job, although they're not particularly aesthetic. The attached photos were taken looking straight up into the valley. The second one is a crop showing the blocking pieces. The higher pieces behind are snow blockers.