Hurry! Remove the Gutters

Getting two bids for gutters put me in limited panic mode--they were ready to install fascia and gutters on my say-so, but I had to prep the roof edge to be ready for them to do the work. I decided to start on the backside of the breezeway.

First thing I noticed was that the guy from Polar Bear was wrong--nobody would notice seams in the fascia. It was totally practical to remove the rot and keep the fascia that was still in good shape. That's what one YouTube video after another shows. If I never noticed the brown paint behind the gutters, a seam is no problem. In fact, there are already seams, as you can see in this photo.

As I continued, I got better at removing gutters. First, you can pry out the hanger nails--they have a twist to keep them in, but there is just one every 2'. Second, my tin snips can cut through a piece of gutter--not easily, but it helps because the gutter corners tend to hold a piece in place even after the nails are out.

The other thing I learned is that the clogged gutters that no longer slope to drain are essentially a means for holding rainwater up against the eaves. It rained for two days after I did this and I worried that water would get into the eaves. Nope. It rolled off the roof and fell to the ground. If the gutters were on, it would have perpetuated the rot.

The eaves all around are just a little triangle--any water intake at the fascia would likely not affect the integrity of the wall and certainly not the attic. (By the way, the overhang is more like 26", not 30".)

But then there's the two weird cases where the breezeway connects to the garage.

There is a lot of rot here--blue edge is a 1x casing molding that isn't available, and you can see the rot where the high gutter used to terminate against the casing. Where the low gutter hit the wall on the right, it punched a rotten hole in the wall. I'll have to patch the siding there. Oh, and they don't make v-groove shiplap siding that wide. It's about 9" and all I could find is 6". The only good news is that the matching little half-gable on the north side is in better condition.

They make flashing for the vertical siding to fascia transition--it runs behind the siding, along the top of the fascia, then on the front of the fascia and into the gutter.

So, now I have a bunch of gutter to remove to save the roof from rotting any more. I'm working my way around the garage because the SW corner is the highest off the ground and I like to do the hard part first. After I do the west side, I'll do the south and the east. Last, I'll remove the gutters across the front of the house.

I began to realize that if I repair the fascia, the soffit, and the wall where necessary... Oh, and the chair rail detail has been hacked up at places. But if I pre-prime, repair, and caulk that whole little triangle of eaves, well then I'll be ready to sand and paint with SW Pure White. That's a big project, but it has definite stages:

• Remove the gutters
• Repair the fascia and other rotten wood
• Prep and Paint the eaves Pure White
• Call in the gutter guys

At that point, I can think about painting the exterior walls as a separate project. Less ladder work--I'll be stopping at the eaves. What color(s)? I can figure that out later. They say paint top down--so, eaves first.

The downspout at the water heater was jammed full of dirty pine needles top to bottom.

Is that bird's nest? Horsehair insulation? Who knows?