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| When bottom gutter is stuck by leaves water overflow into my room |
I was finally at home after a long day and started coding something. After nearly 2 months with no rain suddenly there was a heavy rain. Well in Sri Lanka we get rains heavy enough to flood some areas, specially in capital Colombo. Suddenly a stream of water started to pour in to the room from the ceiling. In another couple of seconds multiple streams started pouring in from different places. This was couple of meters away from my computer table. I quickly covered it and started wiping the water out of the room, otherwise it could have easily filled the entire room pretty fast. I kept doing it for next 30 minutes or so.
Next day I got onto the roof and tried to figure out what was going on up there. (Well I can’t risk my computers and gadgets getting water damaged)
The problem was water coming from a large area of the roof trying to flow through a single water gutter which was blocked by tree leaves accumulated throughout 2 months long drought. Overflow water then went into the bottom gutter which is between a wall and the roof. That gutter was also blocked by leaves so overflowing water in it was directly flowing into the ceiling of my room.
So the cause for the problem was leaf debris blocking both gutters, not just one. Also this has consequently clogged downpipes too, which are harder to clean.
At this moment I can't afford to do a major repair of my roof. Even if I could there was no solution for this in the shops I checked. So I had to come up with an easy and quick fix.
The Hack
In Sri Lanka we don’t have many options with tools and material when it comes to hardware hacking. I went to a local hardware shop and checked whether they have any solution for this by any chance. As expected the answer was no. So I bought a metal net (3ft x 8ft). I had a general purpose pincer to cut that.
Then I formed nets as shown below and put into gutters. Then tested it out.
Next day I got onto the roof and tried to figure out what was going on up there. (Well I can’t risk my computers and gadgets getting water damaged)
The problem was water coming from a large area of the roof trying to flow through a single water gutter which was blocked by tree leaves accumulated throughout 2 months long drought. Overflow water then went into the bottom gutter which is between a wall and the roof. That gutter was also blocked by leaves so overflowing water in it was directly flowing into the ceiling of my room.
So the cause for the problem was leaf debris blocking both gutters, not just one. Also this has consequently clogged downpipes too, which are harder to clean.
At this moment I can't afford to do a major repair of my roof. Even if I could there was no solution for this in the shops I checked. So I had to come up with an easy and quick fix.
The Hack
In Sri Lanka we don’t have many options with tools and material when it comes to hardware hacking. I went to a local hardware shop and checked whether they have any solution for this by any chance. As expected the answer was no. So I bought a metal net (3ft x 8ft). I had a general purpose pincer to cut that.
Then I formed nets as shown below and put into gutters. Then tested it out.
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| Net for the top gutter |
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| Net for the bottom gutter |
I blocked the nets using as much as dry leaves and poured in a bucket of water in a high rate.
The observation was that a portion of water was overflowing from the top gutter while the other portion penetrated through leaves. Overflow water then flowed towards the bottom gutter. Water can freely flow in bottom the gutter because leaves can't get into gutter now.
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| Testing top net with blocked leaves |
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| Testing bottom net with blocked leaves |
Adjusting the Hack
So to reduce the volume between roof and the net I did what's shown in the following image (See how the net fits to the roof sheet). This also prevents leaves getting stuck between the net and water flowing areas of the roof sheet.
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| Leaves can't enter into the bottom gutter |
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| Volume between roof and net is reduced. Also gap between roof inflow area and net is removed. |
I hope so! Have to wait couple of months to see real results. Preventive measures are applied in two gutters. I see no way of water overflowing in the bottom gutter as leaves can't enter it. So water can't flow into the ceiling of my room.
Also this makes cleaning much easier (I don’t have to put my hand inside the gutter to take debris out). And it stops leaves entering and clogging the downpipes which are much harder to clean.
One area to experiment is the size of the net cells. Smaller it is, the probability of any leaf getting stuck is reduced. But when leaves get wet debris can block smaller cells easily and also make cleaning harder. I feel the size I had was just right (½ inch x ½ inch), at least for the type of leaves I get on my roof.
So what's new about this?
Nothing. It seems gutter guards is a common concept in most parts of the world. [1] [2] I just did it in an easy way to solve my problem. But I'd be very glad if there was a compatible gutter guard to be bought in shops.
Why people in here don't use it?
It seems it's not popular in Sri Lanka. Why not? If you look Sri Lanka in Google maps in satellite mode you'll see it's so green. And population density is over 300 heads per square kilometer. Not only that, there are high number of Dengue deaths in Sri Lanka whereas blocked gutters with water are good breeding grounds for mosquitoes.
I really don't know what the correct answer is. May be people in developing countries have bigger problems to sort out. Building a house it self is not an easy job for 99% of the people. Houses are usually built out of partial loans and in multiple stages over years. Usually people move into the house stopping construction halfway so that they can finished the other half later when they can pump-in more money. Because of this nature in ordinary house construction, the level of expertise knowledge applied is minimal.
May be it's due the fact that we are not following standards very well. There is no such thing as asking for a standard size from an ordinary hardware store. Because of that it's very hard to implement something like gutter guard without making it a trouble it self. (see the trouble I had to go through to stop leaves getting stuck in the net). Gutter guards have to fit in properly, otherwise there will be more problems.
May be roofs and gutters are not built in a way that gutter guards can be applied easily and in a financially viable way. Altering the roof/gutter to support gutter guards or building a complex gutter guard can be an overkill.
Entrepreneurship
I think this is where an entrepreneurial act is needed. One need to take all above risks and need to come up with something viable for a common roof/gutter setup we find in most houses. It will create the need for a good portion of the market. Then only we'll have gutter guards in our market.
Generally this is what entrepreneurs do irrespective of what the product/service or market is. I wish to see more and more entrepreneurs and VCs to back them as there are so many gaps to be filled in this world, specially in this part of the world.
[2] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rain_gutter#Types
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