Pulaski

That's my experience - I have gutters that are over 80ft long and AFAICT they are horizontal, or as near as makes no difference. Each gutter has three downspouts - one at each end, and one somewhere along the length, but nowhere near the actual middle One is about 25 ft from one end, the other "mid" one not much more than that. When one gutter showed signs of having overflowed, the company that was fitting caps/ leaf guards for me just increased the size of the downspout to 3"x5" .

Steerpike

Assuming the roof edge itself is horizontal, what's the correct / ideal way to implement a pitched gutter? By using differently shaped / sized attachment brackets? Can you get away with just bending the supports or do you need to use different parts? My gutters were all attached to the top surface of the roof, under the asphalt shingles. I had a big 'sag' in the middle of my longest run and never could get anyone to show interest in fixing it!

Pulaski

Guttering (in the UK) is pitched by placing the brackets in a diagonal (not quite horizontal) line across the face of the fascia board. Other techniques might work, or could be used to fix a bad installation, but aren't usual. As per several posts above, we (those of us who have "US guttering experience") don't think that US gutters are usually, or ever, pitched, so the method of attaching the gutter isn't designed and/or installed in such a way as to create a pitch. You could, and I would do so myself if installing or replacing my own gutters, but that just isn't how it is done in the US, and given the benefits of using shaped-on-site seamless guttering, I am not likely to install gutting myself.
You needed another downspout!

Steerpike

At that house, I needed a whole lot of things I couldn't get! The house was on the side of a hill, with no easy access to anything. The distance from roof to ground was, at the worst point, about 60'. Doing almost anything required scaffolding and that cost me $18k last time I used it (for a repaint). In retrospect, I'm amazed they were allowed to build a house that had no hope of being properly maintained. Never again ...

My pet peeve on gutters/downspouts, though, is the use of thin metal in the downspouts, with bends that provide the acoustic equivalent of a drum! When it rained, the dripping water would loudly 'ping' every second or so (heavy rain was ok - the water would 'flow'; but a light rain would result in 'drips' that would be noisy). I once raised this with an installer at a condo I lived in; he said not to worry, once painted the sound would be deadened (utter bullshit!). I ended up fashioning an angled piece of sheet metal that I inserted through a slot I cut in the side of the downspout, which would 'break the fall' of the drips (being 50' high gutters, there was plenty of opportunity for the water to pick up speed).

zzrmark

I can tell that you'd just love my aluminium roof!

RICH

A few years ago I installed a 50ft gutter along one side, pitched, with one downspout at the front. The reason being no drainage that side, so as much water as poss is now directed to an area that does not threaten to flood above the slab after an hour of Florida storm. It was mostly successful, but is under trees and constantly gets blocked. I need to add some kind of cover to the gutter.

zzrmark

If you do, just bear in mind that you still need to clean the leaves off the cover.
The single 20' length of gutter on my property (over the front door) turns into a 20' waterfall curtain during the summer afternoon storms, doesn't seem to matter whether the gutter is clear or full of leaves!

Pulaski

I don't think so. ..... Our gutter covers are self cleaning - I have never cleaned ours, except for the area where I have to clear them off the roof as well (directly under over-hanging oak trees). The only drawback I know of to the design of ours (a solid cap, i.e. without holes, that uses surface tension to direct water over the front edge and into the gutter) is that while leaves get blown or washed of the cover, pine needles can make it over the lip and into the gutter - as I discovered about ten years after we bought the house, when the downspout got blocked and the reason was a large wad of pine needles.

RICH

pine needles are a big part of the problem
I also do not think my downspout is as big as 3x5. Wiil look into that.
tell me more about your self cleaning gutters. News to me.

Pulaski

Self cleaning gutter caps, not self cleaning gutters. The gutter cap is a curved, solid lid (no slots or holes for the water to go through) that pretty much covers the entire top of the gutter, so there is nothing to trap leaves or needles, no holes to snag them, and no flat surface for them to come to rest on; they always either fall off, blow off, or wash off.. Then at the edge furthest from the roof the cap curves gently over, no hard edge, and the water sticks to the surface by surface tension and goes through the gap between the cap and the gutter, then where the gap ends the surface tension breaks and the water falls into the gutter And it pretty much works as described, I mean it isn't perfect, but even in torrential rain - an inch an hour or more, the vast majority of the water goes into the gutter.

I suspect that the vast majority of the pine needles that blow onto the roof don't end up in the gutter, but if only one needle each week makes it over the edge of the cap and into the gutter, or manages to blow through the gap by a fluke, then after ten years there might be 500 pine needles blocking the downspout.

zzrmark

Which is great and whilst I've seen those advertised I haven't yet seen any down here, the diamond grill mesh type cover however is a proper PITA for catching leaves and is easier to remove for cleaning out than leaving in place while cleaning which makes it more time consuming than just cleaning out the gutters without the covers.

Maste

With the amount of trees, and therefore leaves, that surround the property, I would much rather just clean out my gutters every year. But it's easier for me because our house is only one story, and a small 2 bed, 1 bath house, so it only has 2 30ft long gutters to clean out, plus the garage ones. We have had thunderstorms since I put up the gutters! They seem to be holding up well and functioning properly, but I will check to see how much standing water is sat inside when it eventually stops storming.

RICH

Thanks. Is it this? https://www.leafguard.com/why-its-better It makes sense. I need a version that can be added to the existing gutter, for cheap!
Here's a snap of the current state of affairs

Pulaski

You can get the caps separately to install over existing guttering, but it isn't cheap, or at least wasn't we we had some installed. It's been a great product, but I don't think it was good value. That is one weird roof-gutter installation, but there is so little roof overhang that I am not sure that is much alternative without stripping the shingles off the roof and extending the rafters and roof sheathing.

Steerpike

Obviously lots of different types of gutter guards out there! I installed two types as 'test runs' one year. I hated the white plastic ones - the water simply ran over the top of the guard, dripping all over me. The wire mesh type were much better. But not doing anything was a pain too!

Wire Mesh

Do nothing

Plastic mesh