December 15, 2021 Scott has spent 18 years (since he met the original architect in 2004 for the rebuild of this house after the fire) lamenting the lack of overhanging eaves. While it may look sleek and contemporary, this is New England, and there is a reason why houses have overhangs… rain, sleet, snow, ice and more! Large eaves protect the sides of the house from rain off the roof, a battering of windblown precipitation and more. Well, the back of our house, sadly “eave-less” if that is a word, has taken a lot of abuse from the northeast rainstorms. The rain just runs straight down 25 feet of walls and windows, and the Anderson windows are taking a beating. There are leaks (remember the salamander?) within the mullions between the lower floor windows (mulls – what a strange word, yes?). Scott has wanted to deal with this situation for a long time… and now is the time.
Why are there no gutters, you ask? Well, if you look closely, you will see that the roof basically just overhangs a few inches, with a thin (and useless) metal vent in the minuscule soffit. There is nothing to hang them on, no fascia board, no nothing. Scott and the guys have a plan to remedy that. Good thing they know some guys in the gutter business, because the volume of water sheeting off this roof is going to require a commercial size gutter and downspout to handle the task. But first they are going to construct a fascia, however to be honest I didn’t get the explanation of how they were going to create something out of nothing…. 🙂
The gutter guys have arrived and I only regret I missed a picture of the gutter actually being made – there is the roll of aluminum and the machine that extrudes it – inside the back of the truck. And here the reinforcing strips are being attached. That is one long gutter! And it is extra sturdy and oversized. Just what we need!
Here they are, walking it to the back of the house, and putting it up. Hard to believe that just two guys could do it, but I guess they do this all day. Mostly at commercial sites, so our house was definitely unique. I am so glad that I am able to be around for so much of the work, because I can identify things we might not have considered if we didn’t “see it”. The corner of the house where the downspout will go is basically all windows, with a very narrow trim profile, and windows are super close to the roofline. Looking out from the inside, we were able to position the elbow and downspout so that it is virtually unnoticeable from the inside, and does not obstruct the view in the slightest. An excellent outcome!
The job is done, just in the nick of time…. a winter wonderland the next day, and when the snow melts, we’ll see how the gutter system works! 🙂 We also put a gutter on the garage/apartment entrance, so we are looking forward to going in and out without drips down our necks. 🙂
They are just work lights strung about, but we have never seen the house lit up from the inside, and with the tree in the tower room, and the tree on top of the tower, doesn’t it look pretty?
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