Gutter Cleaning

[TnRiver46]

3 hours ago, volzfan59 said:

Dude, I agree with you! I miss having a basement too.

You live in Arkansas without a basement???????

[casts_by_fly]

2 hours ago, padlin said:

You can have a basement hatchway added, or is it called a bulkhead.

 

About half of the houses on our street have them and they were added when the houses were build (all Toll Brothers houses). All of them leak or back up water into the basement and wish they didn't have them.  All of the houses have 12" poured concrete basement walls that finish above grade.  I'm loathe to cut into that and give access for water, insects, and animals for all the more benefit I'd realize of it.

 

Now a door into my garage that isn't a car door would be great.  Who builds a 3-car attached garage that doesn't have a man door to get in and out?  Toll brothers, that's who.  And before I did either of those upgrades, I'd take two of the garage doors and cut them into one so I had more than 94" width to get in and out.  That's severely limiting on what boat you can fit in there.  

2 hours ago, padlin said:

You can have a basement hatchway added, or is it called a bulkhead.

 

About half of the houses on our street have them and they were added when the houses were build (all Toll Brothers houses). All of them leak or back up water into the basement and everyone wishes they didn't have them.  All of the houses have 12" poured concrete basement walls that finish above grade.  I'm loathe to cut into that and give access for water, insects, and animals for all the more benefit I'd realize of it.

 

Now a door into my garage that isn't a car door would be great.  Who builds a 3-car attached garage that doesn't have a man door to get in and out?  Toll brothers, that's who.  And before I did either of those upgrades, I'd take two of the garage doors and cut them into one so I had more than 94" width to get in and out.  That's severely limiting on what boat you can fit in there...  

[gim]

1 minute ago, casts_by_fly said:

Who builds a 3-car attached garage that doesn't have a man door to get in and out? 

Haha.  My garage is a 3 car attached and there's no man door for it either.

 

The think that really irks me is the recessed 3rd stall though.  Every house in my neighborhood has a recessed third stall.  Why not just build the third stall the same length as the main 2 stall garage?  #bushleague

[casts_by_fly]

Just now, gimruis said:

Haha.  My garage is a 3 car attached and there's no man door for it either.

 

The think that really irks me is the recessed 3rd stall though.  Every house in my neighborhood has a recessed third stall.  Why not just build the third stall the same length as the main 2 stall garage?  #bushleague

 

Ours are all the same, but the doors are 8' wide doors which measure at 94" once you add trim.  Its also 19'10" from wall to door handle.  I can just barely fit my truck in if I fold the mirrors in and touch the bumper to the wall.  I can't walk around the front of it though and since I park it in the middle bay you have to climb through the back seat to cross the garage.  Or open doors 1 and 3.  My wife's car just barely fits for width (its a touch wider than my truck).  I'd much rather have a pair of 10' doors or an 8 and a 16.

 

Do you have a half bathroom or a closet on the other side of the wall from the offset garage?  That's a quick way to get an half bath.  Plus who parks more than 2 cars in their garage...

[gim]

2 minutes ago, casts_by_fly said:

Do you have a half bathroom or a closet on the other side of the wall from the offset garage?  That's a quick way to get an half bath.  Plus who parks more than 2 cars in their garage...

No, there's a raised built in garden bed there, which I intend to use this season (I just moved here in May).

 

I park my truck in the 3rd stall in the winter (it barely fits, but it does).  The boat is always in my second stall, because it won't fit in my 3rd stall.  My wife's SUV is in the first stall in the winter since she drives more than me.  In the summer, she parks her SUV in the third stall and my truck goes in the first stall.  Otherwise I'd have to always move her SUV out of the first stall to use the boat.

 

If my third stall was the same as the main one with the first two stalls, this whole problem could be avoided and I could park my boat in there.  But since its recessed in 18 inches...nope.

 

First world problems here...

[volzfan59]

2 hours ago, TnRiver46 said:

You live in Arkansas without a basement???????

I know, it's nuts. I get nervous every time we have a tornado watch, full blown pucker factor of 100% with a tornado warning! I live 9 miles from the Louisiana border. It's flat here, very few have basements. 

[VolFan]

I had gutter guards on our old gutters, they would still clog with poplar seeds. We replaced our gutters two years ago and went up in size. That has been a key improvement. I blow them out a few times a year and weekly when the leaves are falling. Easy day, takes about 5 minutes.

[padlin]

You’ve got a point about them leaking. When we 1st had the house built ours leaked like a sieve. Took a lot of regrading to compact the soil from digging the basement hole to get it to stop, also had to route the downspouts underground across the yard to better slopes. Ya, it was a hassle, 40 years ago.

[Bird]

Been at our current location for 19 years completely surrounded by large Trees, mainly Oak.

Installed aluminum gutter guards from the git-go and never had an issue.

 

Clean the gutters of my wife's parents every year, many maple trees.

I simply get on the roof and pressure wash the gutters, messy indeed.

[BrianMDTX]

Every house I lived in until 2019 has had a basement. Never had issues with water intrusion in any of them. Maybe it depends a lot on types of soil as well as proper grading. All I know is that the sheer amount of space makes a basement worthwhile.  80% of my neighbors use their garage as storage. That’s madness! ?

[gim]

59 minutes ago, BrianMDTX said:

80% of my neighbors use their garage as storage. That’s madness!

In my previous neighborhood that I lived in for 10 years, a lot of people did that too. Very few actually parked their vehicles in the garage. Even people with 2 or 3 car garages. I couldn’t figure that out. They must just have way too much stuff. That’s all I could come up with.

[Deleted account]

Be careful on high steep roofs, I lost a good riding buddy when he went up to clear a spout when the roof was wet. I was going to fix a shingle after that, and the wife wasn't having it.