Green Grass and Rain Gutters

It’s been just over five weeks since our grass was planted and amidst several torrential downpours it seems to be coming in quite nicely! Nothing does test the ole groundwork like two inches of rain in an hour, the day after it was planted, but we made it through it and the lawn is looking lush and green.

Our Backyard Looking Rather Green… Don’t You Think?

Another View: From the Deck Looking Back

Mom Planted Flowers along the Walkway

Somebody Is Supervising through the Middle Window

I Swear It Wasn’t Me

And the Front Yard

And the Rain Gutters… These are actually something we weren’t planning on getting until next year. You know, the whole building a new house, constantly spending money on different projects, thinking you can hold off until next year sort of thing, but after the crazy rainfall we’ve had this spring/early summer we quickly realized otherwise.

So what happened?

We were getting lots of water/rainfall coming in the front and garage side doors.  I’ll remind you of the most important aspect of this house… zero grade access, with no ramps or steps anywhere.  In other words, all doors are at ground level.  How about a few pictures to really show what I mean:

Front and Garage Side Doors

Close-Up of the Transition/Zero Grade Access

Now this is all great for me coming in/out, but like I said, not so good for keeping the water out. One thing I really want to mention here is all the contractors did everything they could to keep the water out under these circumstances. There was a strong grade away from the door, the groundwork underneath/adjacent to the pavement was very high drainage gravel, and additional weather strips/diverters were added to the doors, but still water was coming in. Probably the biggest problem here, and a design mistake on my end, was to have the valley for the roof line dumping directly over the front door.  When it would rain hard, several hundred square feet of roof area would collect in this valley and splash down onto the pavement like a water hose forcing water against the doors. Then the water on the zero grade access would overwhelm the weather stripping and we’d have water coming in the doors.  Not so good!

Good thing that a close family friend, and the next door neighbor for most of my life now owns Desco Seamless Gutters, because we needed a solution to this problem and needed it fast! And, on this past Tuesday Tom and one of his workers Bruce installed seamless gutters on the problem areas of our house and what an incredible difference it made doing the intense thunder shower we had last night.  We installed the gutters on the areas where the roof lines met to form valleys:

At the Front of the House (Over the Front/Garage Side Door)

Another View

And Around the Deck

It’s really quite the neat process. Tom arrives with his truck and a gigantic 500 pound roll of raw aluminum that he feeds through this special machine/form and out comes perfectly shaped gutters to the exact size needed. There are no seams, the gutter is perfectly shaped/formed, and way thicker/high quality then you could get any other way.

Here you Can See How Straight it is and without a Seam

The Only Seams Are at the Corners

And at these corners Tom seals the seems with a special NASA developed semi metallic seam sealer that keeps any hint of rain traveling in the right direction.

To the Downspout

So how’d these seamless gutters work? Like a charm! Thank you Tom and Bruce!

From all this I’ve really gotten a lesson on why most builders build the way they build… err overbuild, with concrete foundations that extend upwards from the ground at least 12-18 inches and 3-5 mandatory steps into the home. This is great for keeping out water, but also equally great at keeping out the disabled and elderly. I’m so happy my contractors were willing to tackle this problem in a way that got rid of all the ugly ramps and made so I could enter/exit any door in the house. Yes, this created some water challenges, but without too much ingenuity we were able to overcome these issues with the simple addition of some rain gutters and now have a home that is just as watertight as the rest, but with the possibilities for ANYONE to enter no matter what the disability or ailment.  Taking a step back, I can’t understand why we as a society don’t force building standards to be more handicap accessible so that all new homes are “visitable” no matter what the persons abilities. I know I certainly like having a home that is 100% visitable.

For all you dog lovers hoping this post was all about Caleb, how about a few pictures to hold you over until I write about his experience with swimmers tail that thankfully healed as quickly as it happened.

Up on the Couch with His Paws Sneaking over the Edge

I Swear… I Only Let Him up There for the Picture!

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