Cleaning Rain Gutters

Rain Gutters provide a major purpose in routing water away from one of the largest surface area of a house, your roof. By channeling the water away from your house, it actually ends up protecting the siding, windows, doors, and even the foundation of your home.

I pulled the following from a DIY website, which describes the many components to a typical aluminum gutter system that may be used around your home. Regardless of how it is setup, how it looks, or the material of the system, it's primary purpose is to keep water away from your home.

When we first moved in, we realized after the first few rain showers, that water was spilling over the edges of the gutters in multiple different locations around the house. After inspecting the gutters, I realized that they were filled with leaves and silt so water was not able to make it to the drop outlet to drain away from my house.

I gathered the following items: a ladder, heavy duty gloves, garbage bag and my garden hose with an affixed pistol grip spout. I'm not going to glorify this task, it's not fun nor is it an interesting project. Add on to the start of winter, cold weather in a wet working environment did not make for a good combination, so if you can, check your gutters when the climate is to your advantage.

Thus the project begins, start digging into gutter and remove all the excess leaves and silt that has accumulated since it's last cleaning, if ever, and place into the garbage bag. I ended up tying one end of the garbage bag to one of the higher rungs of the ladder so I have one hand to hold onto the structure while the free hand was pulling the obstruction out of the gutter.

Once I was able to remove most of the obstruction, I took the garden hose and adjusted the nozzle so that I would expel a high velocity of water. I started from the opposite end of the gutter or close to an end cap furthest from where the downspout is located and sprayed the remainder of the loose dirt out. You may need to bring back the garbage bag to pull more loose dirt once it starts accumulating again. For parts of the gutter that had two downspouts on either end, I would start in the middle or where it seemed to be the lowest point in between either drop outlet.

In the middle of this project, I realized that it is something I do not want to do again, or at least I would need to find a way to prolong having to do this again. I went to the local Home Improvement store and purchased snap-on Gutter Guards; they come in multiple types and colors that are available. I prefer the ones that are depicted below; they appear to far more durable and simpler to attach. They are a couple dollars per 3 feet segments. They do come in cartons, which also helps in saving a few extra dollars. These guards have an embedded mesh wiring in-between the plastic body which allows water to filter through while keeping debris out of the gutter system.

Image pulled from Home Depot Website, depicting Amerimax 3ft Snap-in Gutter Guard

To install, take the end of the gutter guard with the lip and snap to the part of the gutter that is away from the wall of the house. You will hear and feel it snap into place with little effort. Once the tongue of the gutter guard is in place, take the flat end and place it between the roof apron and the shingles of the house. It may take a little bit of manipulating of the shingles and the gutter guard for it to be properly installed. Continue doing this until your gutters are completely covered by the guard. You will be need sheers or heady duty scissors to cut the end pieces of the guard to allow for proper fit.

Image pulled from Home Depot Website, depicting Amerimax 3ft Snap-in Gutter Guard

Since putting on the gutter guards, I have yet to go through the drill of cleaning the gutters of any excessive debris like I did the first year. I still go up and periodically to check the gutters (once every 6-months) just as a precautionary measure. Also the periodic checks allows me to identify any pieces that have been damaged in the elements, I have the opportunity to replace the damaged piece before it becomes a bigger issue later. Overall, this was only a few hours worth of work on a single weekend day.

Removing Outdated Window Cornices and Installing New Window Treatments

We have been very busy all winter, so busy that I have not been able to post about all the work we have done.  This project was an easy one, and can be done in half a day.  A window "cornice" is a wooden valence that goes over the window for decorative purposes.  It sits like a three sided box and hides the top part of the window frame.  You can also install curtain rods right into the wooden sides of the box instead of the wall.  Also, as was the case in our house, the cornice can have lights inside to light up the window area at night.  I suppose that would be necessary because the cornice makes the area look very dark.

Although these window designs were popular at one time many years ago, today it is very uncommon.  Modern day window designs vary, but I think we all agree that curtains and curtain rods are now both functional and decorative, and leave the potential of letting a lot of light into the room. However, I did do some research online and found some modern day cornice designs, as can be seen here:
Modern Cornices

Some of those are nice, but it does not go with the over all design we want for the house.

Here is a picture of several cornices in the living room with the curtains that came with the house:

The theme of the cornices continued throughout the first floor of the house, and even on one wall where there was no window, there was a cornice with a florescent light under the over hang:

To take them down we pried them off with a screw driver, hammer and crow bar.  Removal was a bit difficult because they are all heavy, huge thick pieces of wood, and you are right near a glass window...  Luckily no windows were broken:

To finish this project we had a couple of loose ends to tie up.  First, what to do with all these extra wires from the lights we removed?  Second, we need to compound and paint over the areas were the cornices used to be.  Finally, we need new window treatments.

We decided to only keep the wiring above the wall with no window, and the other lights that were in the windows will not be replaced.  When do you ever see lights above a window?  So here is the track lighting we installed above the wall:

Much better!  The track lighting goes perfect with our decorative bookcase.

Here is what it looked like before so you can easily compare:

 Here is a picture of all the cornices removed:

And finally a picture of the new window treatments after some compounding and one coat of base paint:

One coat of paint does not finish the job, but there are several other projects that we will be doing in this room.  We will not paint the room with a final color until we have finished those other projects.  That includes our next projects of installing insulation in the walls and replacing old windows.