The Problem
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.

Net for the top gutter
Net for the bottom gutter


Test 

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.
Testing top net with blocked leaves
Testing bottom net with blocked leaves




The bottom gutter was more or less sorted. The problem with the top gutter was the small volume between the roof and the net that enabled leaves to get stuck and create a layer of leaves, sometimes even spread out of the gutter. When leaves are not wet enough water will keep flowing on leaves without penetrating. When leaves spread out of the gutter water overflow through that.

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.

Leaves can't enter into the bottom gutter
Volume between roof and net is reduced. Also gap between roof inflow area and net is removed. 


Will this solve my problem? 

 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.

[1] - https://www.google.lk/search?q=gutter+guard&espv=2&es_sm=94&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=QAIOU5rcC8ayiAeqvICoDg&ved=0CDMQsAQ&biw=1680&bih=964#imgdii=_
[2] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rain_gutter#Types
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  1. This is my first time i visit here. I found so many interesting stuff in your blog especially its discussion. From the tons of comments on your articles, I guess I am not the only one having all the enjoyment here keep up the good work Gutter installers in Jupiter Fl

    ReplyDelete

  2. Our most popular commercial gutter installation uses a 7inch box style gutter system, which provides a pleasing appearance to the building and efficient draining. Commercial Gutter Company offers an installation those lasts- this means a satisfactory and sturdy gutter service for many years to come. Our commercial gutters are pitched to drain, so there is no standing water at the building roof.

    ReplyDelete

  3. Thanks for sharing the information. We are also one of the best gutter guard installers in Sydney. Contact us for gutter cleaning sydney

    ReplyDelete

  4. Nice blog. As if the gutter is not covered by guards or covers they may create a big issue as during rainstorms the gutter may get clogged because leaves and rainwater may not move from the gutter. I think Gutter Protection Installer is the best system for gutter protection.

    ReplyDelete

  6. Your blog is wonderful for getting information about Gutter Services, and it is truly advantageous to a considerable lot of us. I am sharing my Gutter Protection System experience, recently I hired Gutter Protection Sydney and excellent experience.

    ReplyDelete

  7. hi , thank you for your article. big help hor me. http://www.raingutter.services/

    ReplyDelete


  1. The Problem
    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.

    Net for the top gutter
    Net for the bottom gutter


    Test 

    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.
    Testing top net with blocked leaves
    Testing bottom net with blocked leaves




    The bottom gutter was more or less sorted. The problem with the top gutter was the small volume between the roof and the net that enabled leaves to get stuck and create a layer of leaves, sometimes even spread out of the gutter. When leaves are not wet enough water will keep flowing on leaves without penetrating. When leaves spread out of the gutter water overflow through that.

    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.

    Leaves can't enter into the bottom gutter
    Volume between roof and net is reduced. Also gap between roof inflow area and net is removed. 


    Will this solve my problem? 

     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.

    [1] - https://www.google.lk/search?q=gutter+guard&espv=2&es_sm=94&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=QAIOU5rcC8ayiAeqvICoDg&ved=0CDMQsAQ&biw=1680&bih=964#imgdii=_
    [2] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rain_gutter#Types
    Posted by
    Labels: entrepreneurship hacking programmers
    7

    View comments

    1. This is my first time i visit here. I found so many interesting stuff in your blog especially its discussion. From the tons of comments on your articles, I guess I am not the only one having all the enjoyment here keep up the good work Gutter installers in Jupiter Fl

      ReplyDelete

    2. Our most popular commercial gutter installation uses a 7inch box style gutter system, which provides a pleasing appearance to the building and efficient draining. Commercial Gutter Company offers an installation those lasts- this means a satisfactory and sturdy gutter service for many years to come. Our commercial gutters are pitched to drain, so there is no standing water at the building roof.

      ReplyDelete

    3. Thanks for sharing the information. We are also one of the best gutter guard installers in Sydney. Contact us for gutter cleaning sydney

      ReplyDelete

    4. Nice blog. As if the gutter is not covered by guards or covers they may create a big issue as during rainstorms the gutter may get clogged because leaves and rainwater may not move from the gutter. I think Gutter Protection Installer is the best system for gutter protection.

      ReplyDelete

    6. Your blog is wonderful for getting information about Gutter Services, and it is truly advantageous to a considerable lot of us. I am sharing my Gutter Protection System experience, recently I hired Gutter Protection Sydney and excellent experience.

      ReplyDelete

    7. hi , thank you for your article. big help hor me. http://www.raingutter.services/

      ReplyDelete

  2. I believe these facts are really important for anyone trying to do anything in life. 

    Problem: Over the time one need to be smarter to make use of ever accumulating memories.

    Why: But in my experience after 20's rate of getting smarter is not adequate for accumulating memories. In fact some people have non-positive rate of getting smarter due to various reasons.

    How: One way of overcoming this problem is having good habits. I mean not only the physical habits like memorizing and writing things down, but also thinking habits like practice on thinking patterns and practice on concentration. 

    P.S. By the way, by no means this post is only for people over 30. I believe people below 30 will benefit more from this. Actually we all are getting old. 

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  3. This article describes how to send a cluster message from one instance to all the other instances in the cluster.

    All WSO2 products are based on WSO2 Carbon OSGi platform. Carbon is heavily based on Apache Axis2 project. WSO2 Carbon uses axis2 clustering which is based on Apache Tribes, a cluster communication module.

    Sending a cluster message is simple as follows:





    What this does is, it first extracts org.wso2.carbon.utils.ConfigurationContextService OSGi service to extract org.apache.axis2.context.ConfigurationContext. Then ConfigurationContext is used to extract an org.apache.axis2.clustering.ClusteringAgent object which you can use to send a cluster message. To send a message, have to pass in the message object and whether it's a RPC. In  this case it need to be an RPC message.

    Now the message class implementation needed to be look like follows:




    The message class should extend org.apache.axis2.clustering.ClusteringMessage [1] and it should also be serializable in order to be sent over the network.

    When a member in the cluster sends a message by sending an instance of this class, that instance is first serialized and sent to all members. Then all the other members in the cluster will receive it, decerealize and then call the execute() method in the deserialized object. Therefore this class and package need to be exposed in OSGi level in all the members. To do that put the ClusterMessage-0.0.1-SNAPSHOT.jar to CARBON_HOME/repository/components/lib folder for that.
    Note: make sure no other jar file you've put earlier exposes the package org.wso2.test

    To run the sample, first you need to put the ClusterMessage-0.0.1-SNAPSHOT.jar to CARBON_HOME/repository/components/lib in all AS instances as stated above. Then deploy the JaxRS service called ClusterMessageRS.war in an AS node. Then call that REST service by sending an HTTP GET as follows:

    GET http://[ip]:[port]/ClusterMessageRS/services/cluster_message_r_s/clustermessagers/send/{name}

     Put what ever a name with no spaces to replace {name}. Then observer the console of all other AS nodes. You'll see something like below in the consoles:


    Hello there {name}. This is the message called from the other member. 

    You can find the relevant projects from here.

    [1] - http://axis.apache.org/axis2/java/core/api/org/apache/axis2/clustering/ClusteringMessage.html


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  4. Paul Fremantle, CTO of WSO2 did a very informative session on REST at Java Colombo meetup held in last Thursday. I took down following points and I changed it little bit so that anyone who has used REST before, not knowing much about it, can understand concepts easily. If I've got something wrong please be kind enough to correct it by commenting below.
    • Some people think REST is HTTP. Others think HTTP is a REST implementation. 
    • REST is a simple design pattern. You need to think through operations for resources in different context.
    • Advanced rest client - a chrome plugin for testing
    • Browser can request content type (rather than saying *, it can ask for either application/json or text/html
    • Rest - all about the combination of operation, resource and context. Four operations on resouces (i.e. UUID or url - i.e. bank/account/record) within any context (text/html or application/json or anything else)
    • The way to do reliable communication - First POST to say we are creating. Then keep PUTting until succes. Do the similar way with deleting, updating and getting.
    • Use 201 - created, 202 - accepted, 401, 403, etc for reliable communication at the client side
    • No session unless for having a cookie session for authentication. Even authentication need to be done through a token manger sitting in the middle when it comes to large scale. Completely stateless severs a practice of REST
    • In large scale implementations, you better partition servers (nodes) assigning different tasks for different servers.. you can set the location header of the HTTP response and redirect the client to the other server upon requiring different resource. 
    • Hypertext as the engine of application state - using URL to represet the state. GET can't have a body. But a POST can. In case you have a large UUID you have to tweak the pattern with POST body rather than having GET URL to represent that UUID. 
    • REST pattern is async - needing sync is a bad design -- This is why mondodb REST api only support async calls 
    • Caching with REST  - can optimize REST a lot by caching on operation, resource, context combinations

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  5. If you are in a need to write either a WSO2 carbon component, service-stubs, installable feature which bundles in the components, to create a repository of those features or all of them, then all you need is to use this maven template. By following the instruction given below you can easily generate a folder with all those folders off-the-shelf ready to be build using 'mvn clean install'. Then you can either install it to a WSO2 Carbon server or start modifying the project using Eclipse by hitting 'mvn eclipse:eclipse'. Here are the instruction on how to use it.

    Prerequisite to run the plugin
     - maven 3
     - internet to download the plugin and other dependencies of it

    Supported WSO2 Carbon Version
     - 3.2.0
     - 4.0.0

    Instructions

    1. Copy following to maven user settings.xml file. It's located in :
     Unix - ~/.m2/settings.xml
     Windows 7 - C:\Users\$user\.m2\settings.xml

    2. Go to the folder you want to generate the project and hit the following command. Make sure there is no pom.xml file that directory you are going to run that command.

    mvn org.wso2.carbon:carbon-template-plugin:generate -U

    3. If everything went well you should be prompted to enter required detailed to create the project. You keep existing values by just hitting enter key withing typing anything. Finally to confirm everything you have to press 'y' and hit enter.

    4. The project should be generated now. To build the generated project go into the generated root folder and hit 'mvn clean install'

    5. Project should build with a SUCCESS and you should be able to locate the p2 repo in repository/targert/p2-repo. You can give it a try by adding the repo to a WSO2 Carbon server like WSO2 ESB, WSO2 AS, etc, using the Feature Manager ships with all the servers. Then you have to install features added by the repo to see the generated sample in action.

    Here is how to do it with WSO2 ESB.

    Or you can straight away start editing it by hitting 'mvn eclipse:eclipse' and opening the folder in Eclipse as an existing project.

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  6. I just did a hard disk update to my macbook pro. The drive is Western Digital WD7500BPKT. While going through some forums I found there is a load cycle problem with this. The tweak to solve this was to manually setting the power level of the hard disk. This will kill the battery life in expense of saving the hard disk life time. I'm still not done with this issue. But for now I've set the power level to 210.

    I used a tool called HDAPM to solve this problem. The command I used was
    sudo hdapm disk0 210

    Let's see what'll happen after 2-3 days and I'll comment back.

    what is load cycles - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S.M.A.R.T.
    forum - http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1104122
    can check load cycles spent from this - http://www.volitans-software.com/smart_utility.php
    the tool hdapm - http://mckinlay.net.nz/hdapm/usage.html


    Cheers & will be back


    Commenting back on 18-June-2012 


    It took me more than 2-3 days to comment back. But I'm with more useful info. Though initially load cycles were counting very frequently, now it has gone drastically down. Picture speaks thousand words.  So here is the SMART test results. And my last advice is don't worry about if SMART test says pass. It should be fine most of the times




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  7. I'm not a frequent blogger. But I couldn't stop posting today to say a world about how I see Steve Jobs.

    People might comment about him saying he has changed the way they live with amazing products like Mac, iPod, iPhone, and Macbook Air. People admire his visionary leadership, creativity and marketing skills. True, world has gained lot from him on those aspects.

    But that's not my center of the world about him. What I really respect about him was his inspiration to make things happen and how he induced the inspiration to others all around the world. His inspiration could make it possible for him to do all the great stuff he did in his life. Otherwise I really do think he's an average person like you and me.

    More than inspiring himself he had this great tallent of inducing his inspiration to others. Well he sometimes inspired people to buy Apple products paying extra $100! But more than that, he has inspired so many young hearts all around the world by setting his life story as an example on how we should be inspired in our lives to make things happen to make the change.

    Though you have passed away, inspiration gained by millions of people all around the world will remain with us. Thank you Steve. May you attain Nibbana!!! ( I think you are a buddhist)

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  8. Today I've done a presentation on "how to prepare for the IEEEXtreme", a 24-hour long programming competition. Here is the link for the presentation. And don't forget to post your feedbacks. Also I wish good luck for all the competitors of IEEEXtreme 5.0!!!

    There was a problem in the pdf earlier. It's fixed now. Sorry for the troubles caused. 
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  9. Thought of blogging after few months

    I'm working on a project these days majoring on invoice scanning and fetching important data from those image thought an OCR engine.

    While working on it I came across fallowing link. Hope it'll be helpful to anyone who is wandering how to pre-process the image before parsing text into OCR engine.

    http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E10316_01/capture/capture_help/html_ododd/odc_c_overview002.htm

    Actually I have done some work myself before I saw this. Once I finish up my work on my project and get some free time I'll blog on those also.
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  10. first you got to uninstall grub2 (may be update-grub too ... nt sure)

    then you got to install grub -> sudo apt-get install grub

    then you got to install grub into the linux partition

    sudo grub-install /dev/sda3 (this is the linux partition)

    Then you got to setup grub to mbr :

    sudo grub

    this gives you the grub shell.. In there you got to give fallowing commands

    >root (hd0,2) [this is the linux partition, 1 partition is 0]

    >setup (hd0)

    > quit

    steup command cjavascript:void(0)onfigure grub on mbr

    Now you can configure /boot/grub/menu.lst whatever way you want
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