
A programmer trying to fix roof gutter overflow - chethiya
http://chethiya3000.blogspot.com/2014/03/a-programmer-trying-to-fix-roof-gutter.html
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R_Edward
The fellow across the street from me saw the gutters going up on my house, and
decided he just had to have gutters too. The contractor he called did a sales
job on him, and he sprang for the so-called gutter helmets in addition to the
gutters.

The "Gutter Helmet" is, essentially, a sheet of aluminium with a single slot
along its length that allows rainwater into the gutters, while keeping (most
of) the leaf debris out of the gutters. It's probably more of a necessity on
houses surrounded by mature trees that will be dropping leaves onto the roof,
but I'm not one to judge. Here's the thing, though: there is a significant
difference in the velocity of the water rolling off the roof during a gentle
rain and that of the streams pouring off during a torrential downpour.

Not a week after our gutters were installed, we experienced one of the
aforementioned downpours. I stepped out onto my stoop to reassure myself that
the gutters were equal to the task of handling that volume of water, which
they were. Then I looked across the street at the neighbor's house. There was
a veritable cataract of water cascading down the roof surface, skipping, for
the most part, over the gutter helmets, and producing an impressive drip line
in the poor guy's freshly groomed flower beds. He was standing on the stoop,
phone in hand, gesticulating wildly at the waterfall and apparently having a
loud, boisterous conversation with someone at the other end of the line!
Couple days later, the gutter helmet guys were back in his yard, removing the
helmets (and presumably refunding his money).

The hack described in the article is almost certainly less expensive than the
helmet my neighbor bought, and I'm guessing it would be a lot more effective
as well. Perhaps more debris can penetrate the mesh than the sheet aluminium
helmet, but by the same token, the greater volume of rainwater captured should
wash that debris away more effectively than the smaller volume with a helmet.

That said, it's still a Really Bad Idea to have the roof slope toward the
house. Over time, that will cause bigger and bigger problems. Hope the OP can
get that fixed soon.

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pistle
This is a short-term fix. Eventually you will need to get up and clear it out
manually again. Either you will end up with a large mass over the whole thing
or smaller debris will continue to get through the chicken wire and eventually
create a clog. The water will either pool a different way or you will be
redirecting water to some other area it is not wanted.

Regular, manual maintenance will be the only way apart from refactoring the
building. This might just push the problem to other areas of the system which
also don't scale.

You could also invert the gutter. Rather than be a tube that can clog, use
open materials that guide debris to where you'd like it, but are designed to
release debris along the path should it start to collect. Something like a
rain chain or spiral for downspouts. Shallow, wide channels could direct water
to the edges and then overhang could help "pour" the water to the downspout.

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btilly
The comment about people building houses half-way, moving in, and then
finishing them rang a bell. The reason why people do this is not that they are
poor, it is that you have a messed up property system.

I recently read [http://www.amazon.com/The-Mystery-Capital-Capitalism-
Everywh...](http://www.amazon.com/The-Mystery-Capital-Capitalism-
Everywhere/dp/0465016154) which explains this. The problem arises when the
formal property system fails to capture the actual contracts that actual
people live by, and makes it unbelievably hard for someone outside of the
legal system to get into it. Then you get a situation where people live in
houses, but cannot prove their title, and this causes all sorts of
complications such as the necessity of bribing government officials (because
they are squatters) and the impossibility of getting loans.

By contrast if the formal property system is fixed, you get a situation where
professionals can build a house, then sell it to a person who mortgages it,
and then pays it off slowly. The overall cost of building the house is less,
the quality of the house is better, it simply makes sense to do things right.
But this is impossible without formal property because nobody can make money
building houses that nobody else can afford, and banks can't lend people that
much money without having a way to reclaim property if people fail to pay. So
people are stuck building their houses slowly and expensively.

And this is one of a myriad of ways in which it is bad for a country to have
the formal property system out of sync with the actual contracts by which
people live by.

The theory sounded great, but does it work in practice? Well the country where
the author got to try his ideas out was Peru. Looking at
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Peru](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Peru)
it seems that the lot of the average Peruvian has indeed continued improving
since the book was written, so that's reasonable evidence that his theory
works.

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ck2
_there are high number of Dengue deaths in Sri Lanka whereas blocked gutters
with water are good breeding grounds for mosquitoes_

Should have led with that, I would have read with more interest.

I could be wrong but putting mesh over gutters is already fairly common in the
USA.

~~~
chethiya
Yes that's the problem. It seems to be pretty common in developed countries.
But such a simple thing is not common at all in this part of the world. That's
why I think there is so much to do for entrepreneurs in this part of the world

~~~
wging
Might the problem be wealth? I don't know how things work in Sri Lanka, but as
a programmer, are you not making more money than many Sri Lankans? If gutter
guards are more expensive compared to an average person's income then that
could help explain it.

I don't know how expensive they are here, but I'd be surprised if they were
very expensive. Maybe someone else has actual data.

In that case the entrepreneurial challenge is to bring the cost down enough
that people will see gutter guards as worth buying.

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brudgers
Water flows downhill. There is no hacking bulk water infiltration. It's
presence in a structure only indicates one thing technical debt in the
architecture.

~~~
chethiya
I wish I could correct the architecture, as I would rewrite a code if
something goes wrong of this nature in a software I write. But unfortunately,
it's not feasible at this point.

~~~
brudgers
Designing buildings is somewhat like software development without type
checking, unit tests, and compiler warnings - and that's for professionals
with good tools and a formal design process.

Looking at the pictures my advice would be to keep the roof free of debris as
the first strategy. Second strategy is to make each drainage path independent,
I.e. don't dump water from one roof/gutter onto/into another roof/gutter.
Third strategy is use primary and secondary drains. secondary drains should do
two things, handle excess load and make their use obvious to signal problems
with the primary.

The screens on the lower gutter may make your problem worse due to a lack of
scouring and creating a dam at the top of the gutter rather than the bottom.
Better to reduce the volume this gutter handles.

Finally the goal is always water management not water proofing. Assume the
first system leaks and handle those leaks with a backup. And of course never
depend on water running uphill.

Good luck.

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icameron
Hey looks great! My house had gutter guard netting like this too. I had to
remove mine after a couple years because small leaves and pine needles still
made it through the net and I couldn't clean them up without removing the
gutter guard. Another use for gutter guard net I've seen around is for custom
car grilles.

Back to gutters, best of luck. Have you heard of gutter cleaning robots?

~~~
chethiya
Hey I agree with you that gutter guards will never stop accumulation of
debris, it will just slow it down. Selection of cell size might be a good way
to optimize it depending on the type of leaves getting on roof.

BTW gutter cleaning robot is really impressive to me. It's a much cleaner
solution to the problem. Only worry I have about that is financial viability
considering the robot might have to be water resistant, shock resistant, etc.
Of course that'll change depending on the country.

~~~
projct
iRobot makes the Looj for this, maybe you could model something after it?

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stevewilhelm
My personal experience with gutter guards has been mixed. They work for a
while, but smaller debris and nesting creatures eventually get into the
gutters and then it's really difficult to clean the gutter.

An alternative to gutter guards we have here in the States is gutter cleaning
services.

A subscription-based gutter cleaning service in Sri Lanka might be a
interesting startup.

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chiph
My concern is that there's a roof slope pointing at a wall of the house,
rather than away. That's just asking for trouble.

~~~
chethiya
Ya that's true, there is a design issue. The house was build around 20 years
back. But it's not a great issue as it's supposed to get water from a small
area of roof.

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lfj
Interesting write-up about the challenges of tackling this kind of issue when
building materials and construction have no standardization that many gutter
guard products rely on.

One thing to consider in developed countries is that some products slide under
the first row of shingles and may void your roof warranty... then again most
of us around here like to do that sort of thing with our projects, albeit with
less expensive investments than our houses.

It seems the only real solution is to ensure the product has no real holes or
openings, like certain fine mesh products that have holes only microns in
size. Again, it seems the real problem here is standardization and it presents
an interesting entrepreneurial opportunity.

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logn
These work well:
[http://www.leafproof.com/how_it_works.html](http://www.leafproof.com/how_it_works.html)

~~~
chethiya
Yup. Thanks for pointing that out. I couldn't find about the s-bend
technology. Unfortunately, as I've mentioned in the blog post the lack of
standards followed causes a great trouble adopting these technologies. Mostly
used roof sheets in Sri Lanka are similar to what's there in my roof (~~~~
shaped)

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steven2012
I'm not sure what the conditions of houses are in Sri Lanka, but in the US, if
water poured into my room, the thing I would most be worried about is mold in
between the ceilling, walls, etc.

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lostlogin
Longer term - is that roof asbestos? When that gets old just looking at it
will shatter it.

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bluedino
I love the slideout on the right that covers the scrollbar.

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joshuaheard
I hate to burst your hacking bubble, but this product has been around for a
long time. You can find several models at Home Depot or your local home store.

~~~
chethiya
Ya as I mentioned in the post it's nothing new. But what's discussed in the
latter half of the post is why it is not available half way around the world
from USA.

~~~
joshuaheard
I stopped reading halfway through. If I have a major point in an article, it
usually include it in the introduction.

