I'm thinking of creating a new series of sporadic posts about things I despise. No one but me will find it interesting or amusing, but what the heck. If you can't talk to yourself on the Internet, where can you? I'll start with:
Gutters
There must be something better than gutters, as there certainly can't be anything worse. It's pouring rain and the water is streaming down your roof, carrying with it dirt and debris, leaves, and who knows what else. And what do we do with all this water and its payload? Here's an idea: let's funnel it into something that will catch all that muck and clog up, forcing water to go in new and unusual directions in the process.
We're in the situation of having gutters on multiple levels of roof. In addition. some of our gutters are effectively under a deck, making cleaning - or even seeing - them a challenge. During a recent storm, we had one gutter get stopped up and overflow. Because the water was no longer going down the proper downspout, it slammed into a second gutter under a deck. The unexpected deluge and accumulated gunk caused a backup there too, which overflowed and came down on the inside of a sliding glass door. I spent an hour getting things back into shape, and though I don't think any real damage was done, it was very irritating.
To be clear, I do understand the point of gutters. Having the water drip off the eaves can cause problems of various sorts, the most obvious of which is getting soaked when stepping out the front door during a rainstorm.
But they cause other problems too. Ice dams are a nasty issue in cold climates, and plants can actually grow in gutters. Even more fun, in the summer they make a nice place to catch both things that burn and flying embers to get them burning. That's great fun in fire country.
So, all you inventors out there, please help. There must be an alternative to gutters that works without causing problems. Something that cannot clog up, needs no maintenance, and still keeps me dry when I walk under an eve.
Anyone got an answer? If so, leave a response here so I can get rid of the gutters that make my life miserable every chance they get.
