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OP, don't listen to anyone here, gutters are useless. I'll explain. Many people believe that houses require foundations, but this is actually nonsense. Most homes are built with frames sufficiently strong to support the weight of the house, and therefore a solid concrete or block foundation is unnecessary. Furthermore, due to the materials and methods of construction, foundations are completely inflexible, and when the ground shifts due to natural settling or freezing and thawing, the blocks and concrete tend to crack and break. This eventually will lead to the collapse of the entire structure because the entire house is resting on the foundation. What most people don't know is that the foundation is the single most expensive structure in a home, and construction companies earn a whole lot of money by building them. So as you might guess, they have no desire to ditch the foundation paradigm. Old houses collapse, the companies get to sell you a new 20K+ foundation, the cycle continues. Gutters are ostensibly designed to protect the foundation from the damaging effects of moisture. Because most roofs only overhang about 1.5 feet over the walls of the house, rainwater will tend to pool around the foundation, which will lead to the concrete taking in moisture and disintegrating. The gutter system is used because it really doesn't work well. Gutter seams almost always fail, and water will pool anyway. Leaves tend collect in the gutter, and this leads to pooling at the roof, which will destroy the roof of your home. Again, construction companies make a lot of money installing these pieces of crap, and when they destroy your house the construction company gets to sell you another one, with the knowledge that it will fail again in the future. There is no money in building lasting structures. A well built house has the following features: 1. No foundation. The ground should be leveled and bushes planted around the perimeter of the building. The bushes will ensure that water doesn't get under the house and cause rotting. 2. Joists built with pressure treated lumber. Pressure treated lumber will not rot, and is flexible enough to accommodate changes shifts in the ground underneath. 3. Build taller, not wider. Since the ground is prone to shifting, the smaller the footprint, the better the structure. A smaller footprint will be less likely to warp, and the best way to make up the square footage is obviously to build higher. 4. Fewer windows. UV light is damaging and windows leak significant amounts of heat. No windows is obviously optimal, I have none in my house. 5. The optimal roof shape looks like a mushroom cap. This shape of roof will divert rain away from the base of the house much better than a typical roof, and because it has a much lower drag coefficient than a typical A-Frame, it will be much more stable in the event of high winds. 6. The furnaces should be in the center of the home to keep the heat centralized. The chimney should be central, and should not extend out from the roof but rather should be inset to further lower the drag coefficient of the roof. Any rain that falls near the chimney will be blown out by the exhaust from the furnace. 7. No gutters. Gutters fail, and damage the structure. They're also ugly. My company has been building houses like this for years, and I've never had a complaint. I like to make the exterior beige stucco, and I prefer red shingles for the roof, but those colors are obviously dependent on preference. This is an image of my house, pardon the bushes being brown, it's winter and they haven't grown their leaves back yet.  I think you will agree, this is the best house.
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Mar 23, 2015 15:10
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| # ¿ Apr 27, 2024 21:46 |
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HJE-Cobra posted:Gutter covers are the right answer. When I was a kid I had to clean gutters too, but eventually my parents got that Gutter Helmet or whatever and never had to clean again. just put a helmet on the whole house, like i did
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Mar 23, 2015 16:19
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