Gutters. They Are Useful, It Turns Out

Today our crew got to work on a long-awaited home improvement task: installing gutters on the back of the ranch house. Now, we’ve had the gutters since we built the house; they were stored in the shipping container.

Lee had really wanted to use rain chains instead of gutters, so he strung them up and made holes for them to drain into. They were beautiful when it rained, and extra cool when it was icy. However, we hadn’t taken into account the strength of the wind here. Slowly but surely it destroyed the chains, which meant water just gushed off the house. Not good.

When the pool was built, they added an underground water drainage pipe to take away water from the spout in the patio area. But we knew we needed to put the gutters in. So, last week, as I mentioned, the guys dug a trench for more drain pipe. By hand. With pick axes. Today they installed the pipe.

They did a great job on the gutters. I was pleased. I was also pleased that the ancient but trusty Ditch Witch our neighbor has showed up so the next trench was much easier!

Since there will need to be trenches dug for utilities in the pool house, my guess is that the Ditch Witch will have an extended stay. That’s one handy machine. Lee dug our water line with it!

I can’t wait to see what’s next. It’s fun when they are working around our house, because I can check things out on my work breaks.