The Gutter Club » DIY

How to Install Gutter Heating Cable

Team — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 17:25:51 +0000

This winter has been great so far! My gutters have really appreciated it! Last year we were plagued with massive ice dams that had water dripping inside windows and into bedrooms. As a last ditch effort to deal with those dams last year I went out an bought a length of gutter heating cable and basically just thew it up on the roof. It actually worked. It cut through the ice and allowed all of the trapped water to drain out.

Over the summer I got up on the ladder and prepared that heating cable for the approaching winter. Completely disregarding the manual I ran the cable up a downspout and into the gutters where it sits to this day. The manual wants you to spread the cable out on the bottom of the roof line like this…

Sure, that’s ideal, but it uses a heck of a lot of cable, looks ugly, and appears to be overkill.

I’ve only had to plug my cable in once so far when we had snow the other day, and that was just as a precaution. Now it’s 50 degrees F outside and the cable is sitting idle. Love it.

Don’t Overlook the Little Details

Team — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 16:41:20 +0000

We woke up this morning to a strange burnt oily smell in the basement. Years ago we had some trouble with our oil fired water heater and this presented itself as the first possible explanation… though the smell didn’t seem quite right.

I checked the oil tank and saw that it was low. Hmmm… perhaps the heater was trying to fire but couldn’t draw oil. The gauge indicated 80 gallons in the tank. Seems strange that the heater would be having trouble with that much oil in there. Hmmm. My next thought was that the gauge was not functioning correctly. We called and arranged an oil delivery.

I assumed that hot showers were out of the question if the heater could not draw oil. I gave it a shot anyway and to my surprise everything functioned normally.

Later on I went out into the garage and found that the smell strangely seemed stronger out there. Oh! It’s the car, I thought. A few weeks ago we had a power steering fluid leak that was repaired. The power steering fluid was leaking again… in fact there was a puddle underneath the car. I got a flash light, popped the hood, and did a little inspection. Hmmm… the power steering fluid is full. And the fluid line looks fine. Ah ha! There’s the dripping. But wait, that just looks like water. I wiggled my hand down to the source of the dripping and got some on my fingers. It felt like water and smelled like nothing. Ugh… it’s just air conditioner condensation. No big deal. The power steering fluid is fine.

Okay, it must be the water heater. Another trip into the basement and I could smell the smell, but it strangely diminished near the water heater. Argh.

I went back out into the garage to throw out some trash and the smell hit me again. Okay fine, so where is it coming from? I bloodhounded my way around the garage. The smell is familiar and unpleasant. I KNOW that smell. Some sort of chemical that I use. I started picking up cans and bottles until… BOOM! I found it. A metal spray can of Bombadier lubricant had rusted through and the noxious liquid had completely leaked out.

That was a welcome surprise! Both the car and the water explanations would have costs $$$, but throwing out and cleaning up after a leaking lubricant can was easy and simple. It’s funny how my mind went to the big expensive problems and lingered on them. It surprised me that it took so long to narrow down and location the true source of the problem.

User Review of Home Depot Gutter Guards

Team — Mon, 13 Jun 2011 16:48:02 +0000

You guys may know that I’m a fan of Do It Yourself gutter guards. A few years ago I posted about the success I’ve had with the American Plastics gutter guards that you can buy at Home Depot and other home stores. They aren’t perfect, but they are an incredibly economical solution to the comedy of the gutter guard contracting industry.

Here is a realistic review of the Do It Yourself gutter guard plastic mesh shields:

I installed this same DIY Depot guards on my gutters in CT. They install easily and work well…..well, in the summer.

After getting overflow due to gutter blockage the next spring, I climbed up to view the problem. Their lack of rigidity (thickness and strength) had allowed all of them to sag in the middle from snow and ice weight, and their width did not allow them to slip far enough under the shingles and some fell into the gutter at the shingle side. Also, those that had not collapsed had taken on a permanent bend allowing debris to collect in their centers, which like the gutter themselves, required cleaning out.

These would be super if you do not live in the northeast or anywhere snow and ice can accumulate on the eves. You don’t, the choice is to have something professionally installed, like one of the high rated micro-mesh systems, or find a way to prop up the DIY plastic ones so they don’t sag. Else, might as well get used to cleaning gutters every other year….or more ofter depending on how many trees are with reach of your roof.

I am also in CT and I pretty much agree with the general opinion. My gutter guards have not collapsed anywhere and they appear to be holding up fine. They do sag a bit in the center. Though I’ve noticed that this sag is enhanced when the guards are installed upside down, which is EXTREMELY easy to do. In fact, I installed the product upside down in a section of gutter, realized it, and left it that way on purpose… just to see what happens. That is the only section where I can see any significant sag.

Sure, some debris collects on top of the gutters, but it is much easier and quicker to clean this off than to dig into filled gutters and remove gobs of leaves, seeds, and twigs. I almost never clean anything and they seem to work fine.

And when the time comes to re-install, I’ll pay the $100 or $200 and do it myself in a couple of hours and be set for another 5 years.

How to Deal with Pavement Ants

Team — Mon, 23 May 2011 16:24:47 +0000

Here in the NorthEast the weather has been wet while interspersed with bright sunny days. Perfect ant weather. I was outside the house two days ago doing various tasks when I started noticing all of the pavement ants on our walkways. Some people call these sugar ants. They are the very small ants that appear to favor sweet foods and liquids. They are the ones you will find swarming over a dropped ice cream cone on the sidewalk.

I decided to follow the ant trails and was amazed at the sheer number of ants I saw. I was alarmed, actually. I hadn’t sprayed since last year.

I retrieved my ant spray and walked around the perimeter of the house. In two distinct locations I found large trails of ants traveling up the gutter downspouts. I sprayed every ant I could see and anywhere I thought they were going or coming from.

It’s important to restrain yourself from ant obliteration long enough to observe them in order to gain valuable information. This is particularly difficult when you find the ants within your home. You want to watch and see where which way their food is traveling. You will see ants carrying food in only one direction… back towards the colony.

From the Outside: If they are carrying food away from your home (most likely), then you can safely wipe out the trail and feel pretty satisfied. If they are carrying food towards your home, then you need further investigation and potentially professional help. The last thing you want is to discover an ant colony in your walls. Yuck.

From the Inside: Ants inside your home will almost always be bring food OUT of your home to their colony somewhere in your yard. If you find ants inside your home, observe them! Follow the trail and find out where it leads! You will eventually find the point where the ants are entering and leaving your home and out into your yard.

At this point I typically do two things:

I use a product called Terro OUTSIDE my home. I place this stuff directly on the ant trail outside the house. The ants will no longer need to search for food in your home… they will choose to eat the Terro instead. The idea is that they will bring this back to their colony and destroy the whole thing. To use Terro you must be very patient.

After I see that the ants are going for the Terro, then I use normal ant spray inside the house to wipe them out. Basically what you are doing is cutting them off and offering them a different food supply. LEAVE THEM ALONE outside your home. This is the only way to destroy the colony. Let them eat the Terro and forget about them.

Let me know if you’ve got any other ant control suggestions.

This Old House Gutter System Review

Team — Tue, 17 May 2011 15:32:24 +0000

Here’s a video we came across on YouTube where This Old House does a tiny review… overview… really of some unnamed gutter systems. I have a few problems with this video.

It sounds like they are all half asleep, especially the host.
Their “test” of the various systems is ridiculous at best.
They seem to be pushing gutter systems as the “obvious” choice.

But I suppose, what are you going to do in a 5 minute television segment? The only one of the bunch who doesn’t appear to be pandering is the woman. At least they mention the ridiculously steep price of these gutter systems. They didn’t bother mentioning the price of the Do It Yourself option (which is our pick!).

Seriously, with the DIY option you really only have to go up to clean the gutters once every 3 to 5 years… and the cleaning is simple. I’ve only ever found a thin layer of gravel-muck. Spending $4000 to $8000 for a gutter system that *might* work is just retarded. As many others have experienced, you might spend all that money and be worse off than when you started.

Anyway… here’s the video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWLV_iJBaYM

Cheers!

So how did your gutters hold up this winter?

Team — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 17:27:38 +0000

Here in Connecticut it was a rough winter for gutters. We had massive ice dams on a section of roof line that has experienced them in the past. Everybody else had them too. There were a couple of days in February where it was a “perfect storm” for ice dams in our area.

Luckily we didn’t have any internal water damage, but the gutters will definitely need some re-sloping. The ice dams sort of dragged them down in the middle of the run. There must have been hundreds of pounds of ice up there.

I’m also going to see about properly installing the ice dam heating cable that I had to purchase mid-winter in order to mitigate the problem. You aren’t supposed to “install” heating cables after you’ve already got ice dams, but this cable was a life saver for us. I zip-tied it to the outside of our leader because it was completely frozen up. Then I threw the rest of the cable up onto the ice dams. I plugged it in and waited. It took about 24 hours, but even tied to the outside of the leader, the cable was able to completely open it up. And it cut nice channels in the ice dams for the water to escape.

What was your experience this winter?

How NOT to Remove Ice Dams!

Team — Fri, 11 Feb 2011 04:41:27 +0000

I would not recommend removing ice dams using a chain saw. I guess these guys felt that extreme circumstances call for extreme measures! The better way to remove (or prevent) ice dams is with roof and gutter heating cable.

Don’t try this at home! And turn off your speakers because the music in this video is horrible.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CroS818Mb7E

Here is another scary method! FIRE!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xH0KP4gTD3U

Ice Dams and Gutter Heat Cables

Team — Thu, 10 Feb 2011 03:47:06 +0000

Ugh, this was the winter of the ice dams. My gutters along one stretch of my roof definitely sustained some damage this winter. This is an older section of the roof where the sharply pitched roof was dormered in the late 70s to create more room upstairs. This reduced the pitch of the roof significantly and we get serious ice dams in that area almost every winter.

Ice dams and the resulting icicles

This year was the worst ever with giant blocks of ice forming in the gutters all along this 30 foot run. I had to go up there with a ladder (that barely reaches) and cut channels in the blocks of ice to drain any pooled water behind them. This worked, but it was dangerous. A number of people in my community were injured… and one died… falling from ladders and roofs.

How ice dams form

It got so bad at one point that I needed any solution. I ended up going to Home Depot and buying a snow and ice melting cable that you are not supposed to use “after the fact”… but it worked extremely well! You are supposed to install the cable in a certain way before ice dams form. Too late for that. So what I did was run the cable up the outside of the leader (which was filled solid with ice), up onto the roof, and then back down the outside of the leader. I used cable ties to secure the cable to the leader.

Typical roof and gutter heat cable

It took a day, but sure enough the subtle heat emitting from the cable freed a channel in the leader and got the water flowing. I took the loose length of cable up at the top of the leader and just tossed it up onto the roof. Eventually it cut a nice channel through the ice dam and really did a nice job abating the water. I moved the loop around a few times and it really helped eliminate the problem.

So far so good. I hope we are done with snow and ice for this winter!

More Praise for DIY Home Depot Gutter Guards

Team — Mon, 13 Dec 2010 17:24:36 +0000

We have previously reported our excellent experience with the DIY style of gutter guards sold by Home Depot and other home improvement stores. They are an attractive option for those home owners (us!) who balk at arbitrarily enormous price tags for professional gutter guard systems.

Cheap and Effective from Amerimax

We’ve had our DIY gutter guards in place for 3 years now with absolutely perfect results. Reader “Davey” writes in with some additional comments.

Hey everybody, I put my Home Depot screens in 18 months ago, and they are holding up well AND we have extra tall oak trees out the wazoo all around the house, when the acorns pop in the fall it’s a squirrel disneyland. Bottom line is I did find one crack after a year, right where someone clearly punched a hammer head shaped hole (could it have been the roofing inspector ‘insulted’ by a DIY job or a hammer wielding squirrel – you decide).

I kept a couple extra vinyl sections, easy to cut out a small section and replace the damaged part I cut out. Just leave about 1/2 inch overlap on each side. The gutter install business is expensive because people who climb heights and walk on roofs deserve the extra hazardous duty pay. But if you can easily DIY, it’s pretty silly to hire some one.

The vinyl used nowadays is much better weather resistent then ten years ago, and easy to swap out any damaged pieces. Listen to those who contest my argument as they use emotive language or other laungusge intensifyers to reflect the fact they know their argument is not well founded in ‘ground truth’.

How well do gutter scoops work?

Team — Mon, 22 Nov 2010 23:11:59 +0000

Does anybody use a Gutter Scoop? In the past I’ve always cleaned gutters by hand and by moving the ladder down the length of the house. Gutter Scoops promise to reduce the need to move your ladder so often… but how well do they really work?

Here is on model that actually gets good reviews:

Does anybody have any experience with these tools?