First-World Problems...

Those aren't my gutters...the sun is shining! I only look at the inside of my gutters when it is pouring rain and they are overflowing. Like yesterday. Chez Dildo is blessed and cursed by lots of very tall trees on three sides of the house, and while they are undeniably beautiful, they also dump all sorts of crap onto the roofs during the spring and fall.

Yesterday's rain was quite intense for about 15 minutes, and not only did two gutters overflow, the drain at the end of the driveway got clogged with the same stuff, so I had to go sloshing around with a push broom...and then get up on a ladder. In the rain. Luckily it was relatively warm. Those cold October rain storms are much less pleasant!

What's frustrating is that it requires just a little bit of extra detritus to stop the flow of water. It's not like the gutters are full of crap...both gutters were blocked by a single handful of sloppy mess. Knowing that some intense rain was a possibility, I checked the worst offender from a window above and it looked pretty clean.

I think that gutter is sentient, and has a special relationship with the trees around the house.

At least there is a success story below the fold!

Yup...it's fixed, although I wasn't able to use my framing hammer for the repair, which makes it sub-optimal.

I went the epoxy brute-force route, which entailed slopping a ton of epoxy all over the base of the fixture where the spring snapped off, letting it cure, then slopping even more all over it, just to reinforce it with bulk.

It worked, and since the bulbs last a long time I won't have to remove it for awhile, especially since I bent the spring outward to put more pressure on the interior can. That way it is nice and tight and won't let moisture into the housing.

And will probably break again when the bulb finally goes and I remove it again!

posted by CBD at 02:00 PM

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