Downspouts

[PaulJohnson]

I am interested to hear folks perspectives on copper downspouts.
We are having the roof replaced on our 1750 Cape - Red Cedar Shakes.

The wooden gutters are being replaced with a fiberglass replica of the old wooden gutters and we are considering copper downspouts on the front of the house - 5 or 6 downspouts.

With the price of real copper and a preference to not have the aged patina, we are considering aluminum copper penny downspouts (round)

https://www.guttersupply.com/m-Copper-P ... inum.gstml

Please let me know if you have any direct experience with the product, or alternate suggestions.

Thanks

PJ

[Gothichome]

Paul, I had a look at the aluminum copper a few years ago! Didn’t like the colour, to me it just looked fake. My leanings now are to cast iron black.
Also, it might look a bit garish against the rustic simple charm of a cape. Mick or one of the other earlier home owners may have a better perspective. A pic of your home would be nice.

[phil]

regular iron pipe might come as heavy wall or light wall. it would affect the weight. then there is black iron or galvanized. You could always paint it. copper pipe might be prohibitive in cost and yea it will turn green. I tend to agree though that what it is is on the website , probably anodized aluminum, like a lot of lamp parts, tends to look cheap and showy, you might be able to tone it down like with a little brown spray to make it look not so bright like a new penny.

in the end it really is a matter of preference. one cheaper option might be to buy the regular stuff in aluminum. it probably comes in black white or brown, You could buy some metal paint and paint the stuff when it is down on the ground. you can then choose of the many colors available. I have a friend that just got some special color mixed and put into spray bombs and it wasn't too crazy , maybe 30 bucks or so for a can and youd need a few cans perhaps. but you could check that price on loading paint bombs at an auto paint place.

if you used black iron it might lok a bit normal. often older homes that didn't come with running water have a stack made of it on the outside of the house for the toilet vent. my house has a 6 inch iron pipe running up the middle. removing it could get rid of some stuff in my basement but its very heavy so I'd beed ot cut it to sections to replace with lighter plastic then some could be hidden better. as it is I won't touch it because that would open a can of worms.

you might be able to pain the galvanized stuff. then it wont rust too easily as the galvanized coating probably protects against rust better than the paint could.

you'd need to support it from the ground somehow, each pipe would weigh too much to dangle from the gutter so I'm not sure how you'd approach that.
then the other thing to think about is how well the fittings on the gutter would mate to the pipe you choose. you might need to use an appropriate flange or maybe a just a short section of the regular gutter could just fit inside it.

my gutters are white but my house is not. it can look nice if it is just painted to match the house since the gutters arent' really a feature like you might consider decorative trim to be so if they blend that might look the best? Id like to paint mine but if I do I need to clean them well enough to get a good bond or it would look bad if the paint peeled. with new parts that would be easy.

[phil]

another option might be conduit. the stuff used for an electrical mast. Its for some reason quite good at not rusting. If you look at an electrical service pipe that's the stuff. Its thinner than black iron. probably only comes galvanized. the price isn't bad and you can get connectors. Its probably galvanized to start with, might rust inside and maybe bleed near the connectors as they arent' really made to carry water. they are made to protect electrical wiring. youll find it in home despair.

[nhguy]

I had a friend who owned a 1728 tavern in MA. The house was sold by Historic New England several decades ago so it had restrictions on keeping the building original. I remember he had wood downspouts made of cedar. The were attached with a wrought spike flattened on one end to attach to the wood downspout. He had lead pipe coming out of the gutting funneling the water into the downspouts. The look was pretty awesome. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swett%E2% ... usetts.JPG https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spencer%E ... usetts.JPG These are not his house, but in the same town still owned by Historic New England. You can clearly see the wooden downspouts on each building.

[phil]

maybe one could add some wood trim to hide the new style gutter and to surround the pipe with a box like that would be dead simple. then the function would be as normal with new houses but it could look like it was wood?

our summer place has a wooden gutter. its made from one piece of wood. My dad re-used it some 30 years ago. I think its going rotten by now but they get very little rain. one could buy that wood gutter or copy it it with a router and a bit of work. its like a hollowed out 4x4 basically but with some contour on the outside as well. just one piece of wood, no glue joints.

I thought one of those previeous pics looked weird if you look to the right of the chimney near the corner of the house. it looks as if there is a piece of plywood or something about 6" x 8" or so that extends to the left. the roof looks a bit crumbly in that corner.. what is the function of the way the fascia is returned? is that part of the style?

i see some old craftsman era houses where new roofs are installed and they seem to add that weird return feature to the fascia board. I kind of thought it is because the roofers are asked to do it on one roof on a house that uses that feature and then they start applying it to other houses that wouldn't have that as a part of the style. in this example it seems kind of like a feature all off on it's own with no tie in to anything?

in doing mine I opted to put a 2x2 corner flashing just at the edge of the roofing. our old houses didnt have flashing. it forms a drip edge just below the edge of the roofing which probably does help the water from not getting to the edges o fthe plywood roof deck. on the one in the pic, the big stone house it looks like they used that sort of flashing but also covered the fascia board with tin that is similar in color to the flashing. another flashing I guess..

my fascia boards are original. they all have a slot cut in the end. it looks like it at one time had a board stuck in the slot so it would run along the edge just under the gutter and support it. Ive seen other houses like mine that also had the fascia boards with a slot cut in the ends. I think Ill leave it as it is. adding the wooden gutter and restoring that fascia board and the board under the gutter would be quite an undertaking. it might be a suitable "upgrade to old style" for someone who was replacing the fascia boards and gutters. most of them that were done that way are lost by now.

one thing with gutters much like sewer lines in the house. they need to be able to handel the wight of being full because it will enevitably happen. its easy to install them so they can carry their own weight and handle the water but htey really do need to be able to support a fair amount of weight or they will come down when they do plug up and overrun. that water can weigh a lot when they are full.

I had one end of mine that was sloped wrong. It wasnt' an easy thing to fix as it was parallel to the roofing. I added a pipe to return the water that had no where to go due to the slope problem. it wasn't the most beautiful repair but It did work and then the gutter could empty through the added pipe. the pipe just returns it from the end to the downspout. correcting the slope wouldn't be easy as it would have made it look even funnier if it want' lined up with the rest of the run. . probably what happened was my font porch sunk an inch and the roof went along for the ride and ended up down in that one corner and always had an inch or so of water in it. maybe the roofers couldnt solve it either nd just let it go. from the ground you couldn't tell the water couldn't leave it properly. became a crow bath

now im working on my roof I'm paying attention to the gutters, flashing and downspoits on houses more. "normal people" dont notice these things so much though not many houses near me have taken originality into account with roofing and gutters. some of the high end ones have cedar shingles, the vast majority is the same run of the mill shingles. It would be cool to go for a color like red or green and a diamond pattern or something with a bit more heritage appeal.

[PaulJohnson]

Thank you all for your replies.
Our gutters will be fiberglass and the facias, rakes, and soffits will all be Azex.

I am concerned over the flashy look of the penny aluminum copper.

I may morph some of the suggestion to 3 1/2” DWV pipe painted hammered copper. Or, because the whole house will be white - go with 3 1/2” square pvc and have them blend into the background.

Now I can go to the boss with the ideas. Thank you all. I will let you know what she decides.

[phil]

if you change the color of the fiberglass, id use gelcoat. this is what they use to color fiberglass rather than paint. Its like a very thick paint but like with fiberglass you need to add a hardener and then it sets by chemical reaction. it will never peel just like the color on a boat may fade but never peels or flakes off *unless its dirty of course. If you use paint on a boat it will work butte gelcoat is normally used for fiberglass.
if you use that just mix a little at a time, it is temperature dependant and if you wait too long or add too much hardener the whole can will set up like a rock. you can use acetone for cleanup but best to just dispose of the brush or roller.

im doing some steps that I fiberglassed and coating them with some 2 part epoxy stuff that is actually intended as a filler, I think for cement floor cracks. it is tan in color which matches my fiberglass porch pretty well.
it was a bit rough from my makeshift mold so I mix in some fine wood dust. I started painting them with that. neat paint because it fills all the holes and roughness. I got half done and my 1/2 gallon set up like a rock. thats ok because I got 10 gallons of it free so I just need to do another mix to finish it. the wood dust made it a little thick and bumpy which is what I wanted so they aren't too slippery.

my gutters are pretty thick tin. Im enjoying the fact that they are pretty sturdy as I need to lean the ladder on them and move it around as I do the roofing. on the gable ends I let the roofing run over by 1/4" so I dont like leaning the ladder against the gables. If I do I need to add a block as a spacer or the ladder will damage the roofing. I dont' know how the fiberglass ones fare with that sort of abuse but it is perhaps worth thinking about if you are still choosing them. maybe they are fine?

[PaulJohnson]

New roof

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[Manalto]

It's a handsome house. Why not just let the rain run off the roof? Is there a drainage issue in the back?