OK I know this is probably going to get a lot of various answers but what's the real scoop on gutters on historic homes?
The current gutters we have are aluminum K style gutters from the 80s which are complete trash. All they do is pond water, on areas where they angle around the house, they leak and sag and cause uneven wear to our roof (which is 8 yrs old) as well as drip behind onto the fascia board and cause mildew on it and our bead and cove molding (which is completely covered behind it) and I'm very much against having those elements rot off. I already have one area of the beadboard eaves which has a 90° angle change completely rotted out because the gutters and siding pooled water underneath for the past 30 years. (The second I removed the aluminum water doesn't pond there not even once, even if it's a total downpour)
I found fragments of old iron half round gutters under the house, I don't know how old these are. but I'm guessing that this house had no gutters for a long time and seemed to have been fine, and we have wide 13 ½" wide eaves all over the house. If I'm not mistaken I read somewhere that they had wide eaves to keep water away from the house since they often didn't have gutters back then.
I've heard things like "water will get into your foundation"... however we have those drainage rocks around the house, and even with those and gutters now we still get water seep into the basement if there's a lot of rain as it stands.
Feel free to correct me wherever I am wrong.
But lets say I get rid of all the aluminum gutters and just have no gutters, how will that work for an old house?
And I can't see them putting bead and cove molding all over the house just to have it covered by gutters. And there are 1-2 other old houses in my own that have no gutters and they don't have any rot (both are original, with clapboards no artificial siding, one has always been that way the other is being restored/repainted like mine).
With all my other restoration projects ATM, I don't know (or even if I'm interested in) having copper half round gutters would be an option for the foreseeable future. So let's just say I get rid of the alum gutters and just go without.
Thanks,