[Cob] rain catching on a curve

[Bernhard Masterson]

Hi Alex,

I have been successful using the black corrugated drain pipe generally used for in-ground burial.  I have not looked into its safety for drinking water.

 I used a circle saw to cut it lengthwise and remove about 1/3 of the circumference of the pipe.  Then I used deck screws to screw it to facia I made with Trex style deck material.  (The Trex is flexible and easy to bend especially when hot, boiling water).  I first used 5" screws to catch both the outside and inside edges.  That made cleaning gutters a pain. Later I just screwed the inside edge of the pipe to the facia.  In its first decade the 4" pipe has demonstrated plenty of resistance to deformation (sagging open) with only the inside edge attached.  How long till the plastic fails I don't know, by eye it looks like the pipe has at least another decade of service.  Your "L" bracket installation seams good and I bet you wouldn't even need to screw the gutter to the brackets. That could allow easy removal for cleaning the gutter on the ground.  Because of the corrugations in the piping I used it gathers more debris than conventional gutter assemblies.

- Bernhard 


You can't buy happiness. But you can buy a bicycle, and that is pretty close.

____________________________________http://www.bernhardmasterson.com

Natural building instruction and consultation


 > Date: Thu, 12 Mar 2015 14:01:09 -0700
> From: alex mackenzie <alexgmackenzie at gmail.com>
> To: coblist at deatech.com
> Subject: [Cob] rain catching on a curve
> Message-ID:
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> 
> We have an variably curved flat shed-style roof (one slope only, egg
> shaped-ish, but inconsistent) on our cob house that we want to add some *rain
> gutter* to. It is a metal roof. We were thinking to use some kind of
> flexible UV-friendly pipe slit down the inside curve (it comes in a roll)
> and clamping it on like a hollow pacman chomping down on the roof, but a
> friend was concerned about there not being enough space for the water, that
> it will overflow etc. We were thinking 3 inch?
> It would be either attached as illustrated with an L bracket inside every
> couple of feet (pre-mounted on the roof, then hooking the pipe over this
> and screwing it on) or with under mounts of some kind like a hand holding
> it up (in wood, off the protruding rafters). It can't really go anywhere as
> it is hugging the roof all the way around.
> I like the pipe idea because we can run it around the entire 90 ft
> circumference and up top it will prevent under-roof drip runs while below
> it will catch water down to the very centre bottom where we would run it to
> a cistern and the whole thing is consistent throughout.
> Some have suggested custom wood, copper, hand-hewn metal, etc - but this
> all sounds either too complicated or expensive.
> Does anyone have any thoughts, experience or suggestions before we take the
> dive? I would love to see or hear about other examples of this or other
> solutions.
> We need to collect the water as we are off grid and a well is not an option.
> Thanks!
> Alex
>