Good morning!!!!

[Bird]

RedNeckGeek said, "I can tell you what I paid for my gutters, Bird, but the price would be ten years old. I'm interested in how well RS's leaf guards work. Seems to me the designs I've seen would be as good at directing rainwater over the gutter mouth as they are the leaves."

OK, how much was it back then?

txdon posted, "https://www.roofcalc.org/gutters-calculator"

Thanks, Don. I hunted, obviously in the wrong places, and never found website.

I'll tell you why I asked, and if you say I'm an idiot, I'll understand. I have no idea how old our gutters are, maybe as old as the house, but they were here when we bought the place 16 years ago. I have to clean the catkins and leaves out of the gutter across the front every year because of that blasted live oak tree out front. One corner is leaking a bit when it rains, etc. When we had the roof replaced this year, the roofing guy mentioned that "if you had better insurance that would pay for it, I'd sure say the rain gutters need to be replaced." So . . . I recently went online to just see about some prices; obviously looked in the wrong places, and all of them wanted my name and phone number, which I provided. Well . . . you don't get any information; just many, many phone calls wanting to sell. I eventually got a call from one very persistent young lady from Home Craft wanting to send someone out to inspect our place and give us an estimate, so I finally agreed.

I told my wife that we "have a guy, or maybe even a girl in this day and age, coming to give us an estimate." And even after saying that, I was shocked to see a real beauty queen arrive. So she did all the measuring all the around the house, we discussed the fact that I'd like the leaf guard covers on the front; don't need them elsewhere, etc. and she went to her car and worked up an estimate of more than $7,000. Of course I thanked her for her time, but declined. Now she was persistent, came down to about $5,000 and of course I still declined. So she finally asked how much I would be willing to pay and I told her I had no intention of spending more than $4,000. I thought that would end things. But she called her boss, told him all of her measurements of the house, number of turns, number of downspouts, etc. nad what I'd said about price, then asked me if I'd allow a temporary sign in the front yard showing their company doing the job.

So I said I would allow such a sign, they came up with a total price of $3,967 for the whole job and do it tomorrow. So tomorrow, we'll be seeing HomeCraft Gutter - HomeCraft Gutter Protection for new gutters.

Incidentally, she was not only a beauty queen, but has the same first name as our granddaughter, and she has a daughter just 2 years younger than our granddaughter, and a personality that even my wife liked.

 

[PJSprog]

66°F and foggy this morning, going up to 88° today. August warmth seems to be returning, at least for the next week or so.

House was quiet again yesterday evening after work, a contrast to how hectic it's been for the last week. The oldest stepson left to return to Texas yesterday morning around 5am, and the youngest spends most of his off time at his new girlfriend's place. Wife was off doing her dog training thing, so it was just me and the dogs and cats. That makes for good, productive studio time.

Bird, it's amazing that an estimate that started at over $7K can suddenly be done for under $4K. Roy certainly wasn't kidding about highballing. We had ours all replaced when we remodeled the house in 2017, with covers all around and larger downspouts. We used to have a lot of trouble with the old gutters, but we've had none at all with the new ones.

 

[buckeyefarmer]

Thanks!

Did some checking yesterday, and all the outside lights I'd be replacing are controlled by in wall dimmer switches that are also HomeKit compatible. So whatever I get as a replacement needs to be dimmable. And when I tally the number of outside lights, there are ten of 'em. I think maybe 22,000 lumens x 10 would be a little much...

So thanks also for getting me thinking about this project. Most of the existing light fixtures use the large screw in bulbs. And at least half of the bulbs have had the lens part fall off because the glue that holds them in place failed. In some, the motion sensor in the fixture doesn't work reliably, or at all. And none of them are all that bright even when they're working properly. Thinking now that a dimmable LED fixture (can't call 'em bulbs, and they'll probably have more than one LED, so what do you call 'em?) in the 5,000 to 10,000 lumen range that can somehow be mounted on the wall, probably via a blanking plate over the metal electrical box that's already there. Then use stand alone HomeKit compatible motion sensors to trigger them, which gives me logging of the trigger events, and tailoring of what lights come on when any particular motion sensor is triggered. I've already got it set up so that hitting any of the wall switches on that side of the house turns on all of the outside lights on that side, so it makes sense to do the same with the motion sensors.

Sounds like an interesting setup.

 

[buckeyefarmer]

Last time I had an Amish crew replace my roof and gutters due to hail, I think all new one piece gutters was in $1000 price range without covers.

 

[Rich B1]

Good morning! 73 now and the rain has stopped for now. Rain in the forecast thru Sunday.

Interesting to step outside this morning, drizzling, really humid, and really foggy. Awesome combination. Not really.

Shelves in the stores locally are starting to have a lot of bare spots again.

Everyone stay safe out there

 

[LS Tractor Owner]

Good morning to all ! Low of 55, going up to the mid 80's. Still a chance of some showers.... I have given up on those chances... it seems we have a better chance to win the lottery!

Piddled around yesterday, didn't do anything on the list.... just too hot and humid.... at least humid for our 'normal', not anything like humidity that you guys experience back east or the south.... I don't think I could tolerate any humidity levels like those anymore.

Today is errand day.... so not much else will be done. At least I have established a plan of attack for the projects. There is no 'rush' to get them done, but the wifey is getting a little antsy with the landscaping project.

I have the landscape fabric and the drip irrigation supplies, but no mulch to hold it all in place. We are waiting for the 'Labor day sale' at Lowes to get the mulch special of 5 bags for $10. It ends up being almost 40% cheaper to get at that price than buying bulk and paying for delivery. I'll need about 120 bags. With the 'sale', I will get 28 bags for free......

Wow! Those prices for gutters are crazy! We don't have any gutters on the house or garage.... didn't have them on the old house either....I have contemplated getting gutters, It doesn't rain here enough to justify the cost. Now I have confirmation of that thought...

Everyone have a great day!

 

[rswyan]

73F and cloudy @ 11:15, headed up to a high of 78F supposedly, with the possibility of isolated thunderstorms (33%)

No rain since midnight, but yesterday we got almost 0.75".

Last night after dinner I put the stump/shrub bucket on and dug out the remainder of the roots that were holding the hawthorn in place:

Then swapped out to the pallet forks and hauled the three trees up to the vicinity of the burn pile.

After that got all the fish fed.

Woman is currently snappin' and poppin' and chomping at the bit to get outside and get going. Told her to take the Cub and dump cart and go pick up the sticks from that hawthorn I knocked down and leave me alone while I finish having my coffee ...

Woman also anxious to get back over to barn and get the gutter clean out finished up but I suspect it is too muddy.

Not sure what all will be on agenda for today, particularly if we get more rain.

Rolling the front again is a possibility. I noticed a definite improvement when mowing this last time, after having rolled it ... was able to go a lot faster, although I imagine some of that was due to the ground not being totally dried out and hard.

Very happy with how the lawn is looking, now that we've had some rain to wash in the soil amendments and fertilizer. Progressing faster than I thought it would:

Hope everyone has an enjoyable, productive, and safe day ...

 

[sodamo]

66°F and 0 rain. Sunny

Off to Hilo this morning for my scheduled eye checkup and a couple of errands.

That will pretty much take the day as it usually takes me rest of the day to recover from the dilating.

Prayers for all
Be safe
Have a great day

 

[Bird]

LS Tractor Owner said, "Wow! Those prices for gutters are crazy! We don't have any gutters on the house or garage.... didn't have them on the old house either....I have contemplated getting gutters, It doesn't rain here enough to justify the cost. Now I have confirmation of that thought..."

Well, I sure don't blame you. If you don't have to go in or out through a sheet of rain pouring off the roof, or have ditches dug by rainfall around your foundation, I'd say you don't need rain gutters.

 

[rswyan]

Had 148' of seamless 6" gutters (two 74' runs, with four downspouts) installed on the barn 10 - 15 years ago. Also had 32' of seamless 5" gutter installed on the side of the shop that abuts the road at the same time. No covers on any of them. They used a particular color on the barn - which required the installer to pick up a coil of aluminum to make them, since it wasn't a color he normally carried. Shop gutter was done in white. Price was around $1100.

While I was happy with the quality of the gutters overall, I was not pleased with how they installed the hidden hangers (too few and inconsistent spacing)

Got a quote last year from Leaf Filter (local-based company but big operation, owned by Matt Kaulig a local celebrity of sorts) to replace the gutters here at the house (original) and install covers on the house and the pole barn. The salesman started at $15K and by the time he left he was down to just under $9K IIRC. I thanked him for his time and stopping by.

A couple of neighbors just had gutters put up/redone/replaced by the same individual. Guy that did it was a friend of one of them. The neighbor (who wasn't a friend of the installer) calculated it out and decided it wasn't worth his time to do it himself. Don't recall what he paid offhand, but he was just having a section put up on a new addition, not his entire house.

IIRC, when we were talking he said a coil (the flat aluminum they use to form the gutters) ran around $85 wholesale (I think for 200') to the installer. So that's not terribly expensive.

But then there's the cost of the machine - which I'm sure isn't cheap ($5K+) You can get a combo machine that will do both 5" and 6" K-style gutters, but it costs more. Guy that did these recent jobs had two machines, one for 5" and another one for 6".

And the cost of the labor + hardware (hidden hangers, downspouts, etc.)

As far as gutter guards go, I went with these:

A-M Aluminum Gutter Guard 6" (200', Mill Finish)

Seemed fairly well rated, reasonable cost (around $1/foot)

Menards carries this product in the 5" but not the 6" ... so I ordered them from Amazon.

Have another $30 in the stainless steel screws to put them up ... but I bought enough to hopefully do both the barn and the house (400)