Box Gutters!

[Jon Bon]

These things are the bane of my existence.

I have them in one of my rental houses and they cause me all kinds of greif. It happens basically like this: A single leaf falls into the gutter there by clogging it 100%. A light rain falls, all the water now overflows the gutter, saturates my back yard, and floods my basement.

Yes I might be a little over-dramatic here. If these were on a house I lived in cleaning them would be much less of an issue, but it is  a rental. I try to stay on top of them as much as I can but cleaning them 2x a month just does not feel worth it.

So what can I do?

1. Add More downspouts? - This will help, but they will still get clogged
2. Cut back the tree? - This would help more, but there are other trees and this is not cheap at all. ($1000?)
3. Gutter guards?

Do they make anything for the old style box gutters? Could I Macgyver something up to sit on top of the box gutter to keep the tree junk out? Issue here is I am not exactly sure what I would attach them too. I can use screws with rubber gaskets but those are going to leak at some point.

What say you MMM community?!

[bacchi]

Are your gutters sized too small?

I used the Costco gutter guards with the 3M tape and they're holding up great.

[Roadrunner53]

We bought this gutter cleaner thingie. You do have to buy a very powerful shop vac. We had one that was not as recommended and had to buy a new one at Home Depot. This is the thingie and it works fantastic. No more ladders:
https://www.gutterclutterbuster.com/

[Jon Bon]

The box gutters themselves are huge, maybe a foot across or nearly so? The issue is in the design. All the water is going to move to the lowest point at the downspout. unfortunately there is a massive tree off the back. So I cant put a downspout any where else.  Box gutters are designed to dump water over the side if they get clogged. I just need to prevent them getting clogged!

I can access them for clean out from the third floor window which is helpful, But I would rather not be doing it 2x a month.

I was thinking about putting some sort of screen across the top. I would take like a 12 inch piece of aluminum screen and try to secure it some how? I could put a few screws under the singles I suppose. I will try and grab a picture next time I am over there.

[better late]

We owned a home with box gutters for a long time -- nodding along while reading your post.  I remember asking the same question about mesh or screening but don't remember the answer. My only concrete advice is to make sure that when the gutters are cleaned out the downspouts are also cleaned out (so that a coin could roll down the spout from top to bottom...

[Jon Bon]

We owned a home with box gutters for a long time -- nodding along while reading your post.  I remember asking the same question about mesh or screening but don't remember the answer. My only concrete advice is to make sure that when the gutters are cleaned out the downspouts are also cleaned out (so that a coin could roll down the spout from top to bottom...

Yeah they are terrible... Well I guess they are fine in the absence of all trees. But 100 year old houses tend to have 100 year old trees near them.

I do have bulb shaped strainers at the drop to the downspouts themselves. But those get clogged very fast. I could remove them, but then the downspout itself would get clogged.

[better late]

We owned a home with box gutters for a long time -- nodding along while reading your post.  I remember asking the same question about mesh or screening but don't remember the answer. My only concrete advice is to make sure that when the gutters are cleaned out the downspouts are also cleaned out (so that a coin could roll down the spout from top to bottom...

Yeah they are terrible... Well I guess they are fine in the absence of all trees. But 100 year old houses tend to have 100 year old trees near them.

I do have bulb shaped strainers at the drop to the downspouts themselves. But those get clogged very fast. I could remove them, but then the downspout itself would get clogged.

Oooh. I like the idea of those bulb shaped strainers... That's sounds a good start....

[lthenderson]

I helped someone with box gutters once to make a leaf guard out of sheets of soffit material. It came in 8 foot sections and we had to trim the width to size to fit their box gutter.

https://www.lowes.com/pd/Georgia-Pacific-12-in-x-144-in-White-Pebble-Vinyl-Vented-Soffit/50106928

Ours looked similar to this. We ended up putting holes in the ribs to allow water to drain into the gutter.

[Jon Bon]

I helped someone with box gutters once to make a leaf guard out of sheets of soffit material. It came in 8 foot sections and we had to trim the width to size to fit their box gutter.

https://www.lowes.com/pd/Georgia-Pacific-12-in-x-144-in-White-Pebble-Vinyl-Vented-Soffit/50106928

Ours looked similar to this. We ended up putting holes in the ribs to allow water to drain into the gutter.

Oh that is pretty good, I could do the entire back of the house with 2 sheets of it..... Worth $20 bucks and 2 hours of my time for sure. Heck I might even have some in my garage leftover from building it!

Thanks Henderson!

[Jon Bon]

Update: I cleaned them out 2 weeks ago. I stopped by yesterday on a different issue and just checked them. COMPLETELY FULL OF WATER. (note it had not rained).

So I think my mesh bulbs are the issue. Obviously when I took them out it drained right away and a small about of debris went down the drain pipe but not enough to be concerning. I will just have to stay on top of them in the fall.  I hate box gutters so much!

I honestly might attach a traditional gutter to the back of the house. That way when the box gutter overflows (which apparently it does like every damn time) the regular gutter will be able to drain it properly! Honestly im running out of ideas here. Other then converting the whole house to traditional gutters or cutting down huge trees. Both would be 10k or more.

Is this a horrible idea?

[lthenderson]

I think it is the classic putting on a bandaid instead of fixing the problem. I wouldn't want a box gutter full of water on top of my house at all times. Not only would it be a breeding ground for insects but I think eventually leaking would be an issue.

[Roadrunner53]

Did you get an estimate for new gutters? We had new ones put in about 5 years ago. They are the no frills, every day gutters that collect debris but never clog up or fill with water unless we have excessive downpours of rain that the gutters can't keep up with. They were not that expensive at all. The gutter guys came in one afternoon and constructed them and they were gone. The Hub usually uses the Gutter Clutter vacuum in the spring and the fall to clean out debris and that is it. Prior to these gutters, we had the same type before that too. We had a new roof put on the house and the gutters were taken off. They were old anyway.

I believe you said you rent this house out with the box gutters. Can't you claim it as a business expense at tax time? If these gutters are filling with standing water like another poster said, that is a breeding ground for mosquitoes and they carry all kinds of diseases.