Welcome to my blog, my name is Daisy. A few years ago, my husband and I purchased an old house which required a lot of work. We spent many weeks gutting the place and installing new flooring, painting the walls and clearing the garage space of junk. However, my favourite part of renovating the house was the roof. I loved climbing onto the roof to inspect the tiles, removing and recycling the broken ones and replacing the gaps with new tiles. I also learnt how to waterproof and maintain our roof so that we can avoid problems in the future. I started this blog to help others who are interested in carrying out restoration or repair work on the roof of their home.
Sky High: Repairing and Restoring Your Roof
Gutter Replacement Tips: Install an Emergency Overflow
Hunter Prescott
If you've got to the stage where your home needs gutter replacement, then you may have decided to stick with what you know and have similar gutters installed on your home. You know that this kind of guttering has worked OK for you in the past, after all.
Before you get your roofer on the job, you should check if there are ways to make your guttering even more effective. For example, installing emergency overflow measures may be worth considering.
How do emergency overflows work? Do you need them in your gutters?
What Are Emergency Overflows?
Emergency overflow systems give guttering an additional way of dealing with excess water. Usually, when it rains, the water runs through your gutters into pipes that carry the water away. However, sometimes, gutters can't cope with the water running through them.
For example, if there a really heavy downpour, then a gutter may be taking in water a lot faster than it can get it down the pipe. Or, if the gutter is blocked, water may not run away quickly enough.
If the gutter has an emergency overflow system, then excess water in the gutter has somewhere to go. For example, a simple system just makes the front of the gutter lower than the back. If the gutter gets full, the extra water spills safely over the front.
Alternatively, you can buy guttering with slits in the front side. Here, excess water will leak out of the slits to clear the gutter when it is over-stressed.
Do You Need Emergency Overflows?
Not every home owner has problems with guttering overflows. For example, if you don't get a lot of heavy rain or storms where you live, then your local rainfall isn't likely to over-tax your guttering.
However, if you've now realised that your gutters have been overflowing periodically because of the weather, then using overflows makes sense. These overflows direct water away from your house. Without them, excess water is likely to move onto and down your roof edges and walls. This can cause structural damage over time.
Your roofer can explain more about gutter overflows and when they might be useful. They can also help you choose other solutions that may make your gutters work more effectively, such as guards or meshes. Given that you're replacing your gutters anyway, it makes sense to look at any upgrades that might make your system work better and last longer.
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