My D.I.Y. Nightmare Hell - Replacing the Guttering

Now the title is a bit salacious, because comparing it to hell is a little extreme, but as always seems to happen with DIY projects they turn out to be more challenging than they first appeared!

My plan this time is to replace the guttering.  Don’t start unduly worrying because the first piece of good news is that I live in a bungalow, so if I fall from the ladder I am that bit closer to the ground, but having said that it still feels quite daunting up those ladders.  My bungalow was built in 1954, and, replacing the guttering will celebrate the 60^th anniversary.  Aside from this nostalgia there is the other pressing issue of the fact that it has started to fail, and, the rain is no longer filtering into the desired channels.

The first challenge was to remove the old guttering which is made from cast iron.  Boy oh boy did I underestimate how heavy this was.  A relatively small (in relation to the total) piece of about a metre is all I can manage to lift down at a time.  My first thought was to dislodge one of the brackets and pull it down hoping that it would separate from the other brackets and fall down.  How wrong was I?  The issue I had not considered is that even if you could dislodge it from the brackets after years of painting, the other end would push into the tiles lifting them up.  Now I did not want to re-tile the roof as well, so I soon gave up on this method.  Fortunately for me the guttering was joined at about metre lengths by a bolt and screw.  Even with paint all over the bolt heads, I managed to get a spanner around each one to undo it.  Hitting the unscrewed bolt and the guttering would then break it away from the piece it was connected to, and, hey presto I was able to remove it.  Luckily cast iron is quite brittle and breaks easily.

The next issue was removing the brackets, and, there are plenty of them (presumably to take the weight of the guttering), each with three retaining screws which are all either rusted or painted on.  My initial attempt at removal involved drilling the screw head with a high speed steel drill (HSS, which drills into metal) to break the screw heads away from the body, and, therefore enabling me to lift off the bracket.  The problem with this was that I found it impossible to remove the rest of the screw thread from the wooden fascia board, thus leaving a protruding piece of screw.  I then decided to try to unscrew the screws, by initially removing the paint or rust from the gap in the screw head so I could insert a screwdriver.  The results from this were mixed with some screws turning whilst others remained stubbornly fastened.  It then occurred to me that the resistance stopping the screws from turning may come from the rust or paint around the outer edge of the screw.  I removed this, and, to my amazement managed to get the majority of screws out.  The couple left I had problems with I managed to turn using the screwdriver attachment of a socket set with a vertical handle to give me more leverage.

Well the physical work may have been over, but my goodness the hard work now started; removing the old flaking paint from the wooden fascia boards.  For this I initially used a wire brush, followed by a scraper, followed by a rasp (for the more pitted areas), and, finally finishing with coarse aluminium oxide sandpaper.  I was advised by a friend to use aluminium oxide as its properties made the paper last longer and although initially more expensive to purchase it worked out in the long run to be cheaper.  My tip here is that you can never buy enough coarse sandpaper.  You can use it up at lightning speeds.  After sanding, I filled all the holes that had been left by the removal of the screws and brackets using wood filler. 

The next big problem I encountered was that part of the guttering an end piece, had been cemented into the side of the house.  I was very worried about this as I did not want to dislodge any mortar connecting to the roof tiles, and, thereby creating a leak and further problems.  I was beginning to regret even starting the project now.  Finally I had to accept that I would have to chisel out the mortar to remove the guttering end plate.  Fortunately the mortar broke off fairly cleanly, but did expose a hole into the roof space.  This was my biggest nightmare.  I searched the internet to see what I needed to patch up the hole and the answer seemed to be cement.  This filled me with trepidation as I had never used cement before, and, the talk on the internet was about alkaline burn if you exposed it to your skin, and, the wearing of safety clothing etc.  I visited the local DIY shop to see if I could gain an insight and to make a purchase.  Here started one of my bug bears with DIY shops; if you are not in the trade they treat you like idiots.  When I asked questions about using the cement and mixing it up etc., they looked at me as if I was an imbecile.  I left the shop absolutely none the wiser but with a small bag of ready mixed cement.  Well I say small it was 5kg, and, all it turned out I needed was 500g, but in fairness was relatively inexpensive.  The bag gave me no clues to the ratio I needed to mix the cement with water, and, so again I turned to the internet for help.  After quite a lot of searching I got the answer I was looking for.  The mix required was a weight ratio of 4 parts cement to 1 part water.  This means that as I required 500g of cement mix, I would mix this with 125g in weight of water.  It was quite surprising how little water was required.  The mixing of the cement and water turned out to be relatively straightforward as well and I managed it without the aid of gloves by being very careful.  The tool which was indispensible is the pointed tip trowel, allowing you to get into very hard to reach places.  The trick I found was to build up the cement layers gradually, and, not to rush the job.  The whole process took me just under an hour, but the results I must say I found to be quite pleasing.  Just for information cement gains its strength by going through the curing process whilst drying, so the longer you keep it wet the stronger is gets.  I took this to mean I should keep moistening the cement throughout the day, which I did.

As we near the end of this post, I have a confession to make.  The area of the bungalow I have so far worked upon is only about 5m long on one side.  I still have another 45m to go.  The sanding alone for this one area took about three hours.  I have so far spent about three days on the project, but I feel I am learning.  The key is to set yourself realistic targets and then add another 50% to the timescale for contingency.  At least then you can get used to how long it will take you to achieve, and, if you manage to do more in less time at least it acts as a good motivator.

So my next step is to re-sand the filler, paint the wood fascia with primer and undercoat and finally a topcoat of red paint.  I didn’t want the final coat to be white, or, black, so I chose the happy medium of red.  I hope it looks okay.  After that I still have the trauma of attaching the new guttering.

I will keep you updated with my progress.  My timescale for the whole project is now two weeks.  Fingers crossed.