I normally infest Fine Woodworking Knots forum but the lads ower there suggested I post my question here, amongst you builder-chaps….
The ladywife has acquired a fine cedar summer hoose for the bottom of the garden. Here is a pic:
It has hard-standing around the door and gravel soak-away around the rest of the concrete platform on which it sits, so it doesn’t so much need gutters as… well, they might look attractive and would also enable collection of rainwater (it rains plenty here in NW England) into butts, for use in the garden.
I don’t want to have anything too posh up there, as it would cost too much (copper is expensive, for example) and might gild the lily. So, I was thinking of using straight English oak logs via froe (to split), drawknife (to take off bark / sapwood) and gutter adz (to hollow out). I can get good straight oak from a friend who manages a coppice wood just a few miles north of here. I would hope to end up with heartwood “rounds” of about 4 – 6″ diameter.
I already have those tools mentioned, for making chairs, bowls and the like.
The gutters would need to go up here:
My questions are:
- Do I need to line the insides of the gutters with something like pitch or a plastic membrane?
- What might be a good method to join sections of this crude guttering, especially at the corners?
- How to make and connect one or two basic downspouts that will match?
- How to attach the gutters to the fascias?
I’ve searched Breaktime and found plenty about wooden guttering of the made-up variety – the full-sized kind for use with traditional house architectures – but nothing about basic log gutters made with a gutter adz.
Any help or references to books/websites of relevance would be gratefully received.
Lataxe
to attach, I'd consider removing the cedar shingles on the fascia and screw thru the inside of the of the gutter into the rafter tails - it shouldn't be particularly difficult to flatten the side of the gutter that attaches to the building a bit - - depending, you might need to rip a piece of trim to fit under the gutters -
you don't specify your plan for the collected water (barrel next to structure?, plumb it away?) - it's not hard to direct water in a near vertical plane - prop a simple board at an angle under the gutter drain hole and it will direct water 2-3 feet away from the structure with almost no loss - another section of your gutter secured under the hole would move the drainage horizontally as far as you want to take it -
On some older homes near me that had wooden gutters that needed lining I used rubber roofing I set into Karnak flashing cement and they've worked well for decades since I did the work on them b/c I still do work fopr those people on occasion.
I might think of using copper straps from the roof to around the gutters. Might actually give it a nice look if you have grant make you up some unique ones...and a leader "chain" into an old whiskey barrel might give it more charm rather then conventional leader pipe.
Edited 6/6/2009 11:12 am ET by andybuildz
Edited 6/6/2009 11:14 am ET by andybuildz
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