DMR Gutters - Stevenson Copper Gutter Work Details & Photopage

This is a house I was asked to worked on at 2397 S. W. Montgomery in Portland, Oregon owned by an Jean Stevenson, who's Daughter found me on the web. She lives in Bend, but made it up here frequently to assist with this project along with her Brother. This is a grand old house up in the West Hills area with some very unique problems to solve. Here are some before and after shots to see the difference.

This plain 'V' shaped steel scupper (below left) was a modern replacement. It was amusing to see they had left the old DS (down spout) from the hidden box gutter that was no longer in service. As you can see the newer DS has come dislodged from the bottom of the gutter and splatters much of the rain outside of that DS. The shot on the right was a gutter mounted low on the wall instead of a storm-drain pipe that I added to replace this mess

They had several different contractors attempt to fix her gutter problems in the past and I was amazed at some of the crazy ideas they had tried. Just the stupidest things I had never even seen attempted before. It was a collection of the worst repairs I have ever seen. They had me replace her gutter system and built-in scuppers with nice sturdy copper and aluminum gutters that work.

The old plastic gutter (upper left) was replaced with the new one on the right and below with a new fascia board. I graded the gutter to drain off to the one side. A short gutter like this does not need a DS on each end. I extended the gutter a little more on the low side to have the DS centered on the siding between the windows.

They had me replace 4 exterior custom scuppers in white aluminum and copper for the 2 built-in scuppers seen here, so they would last beyond the 50 year roofing. The last repairman had covered this rusty steel with aluminum foil used for cooking as a fix to keep it from leaking into the house walls, so of course that did not work. I could not believe my eyes when I saw it! As you can see the rust holes under that foil were large enough to pass my fist through.

The next photo shows the temporary repair I did with aluminum just to get them by a few months until I could fit their job in my schedule and fix this properly with copper. I took this shot (below) of the other scupper that was not as bad off from inside the house to see the staining of the wood under it.

Believe it or not the previous front gutter repair was even more ridiculous. Someone had loosely set some 10' long 'U' shaped galvanized steel troths inside the built-in gutter in front. Besides the fact that the seams were loose and not sealed together was bad enough, but how the rain would largely not even go into that new troth was even more insane, being loose front and back with no flashing to make the rain go into it. Even before they stuffed the old gutter with this other metal the opening was so narrow you could not get your hand in it to clean out the debris and there was nothing to attach a screen to. In stead of doing in the front like they did ion the back by covering up this old gutter and just mounting the new gutter over the edge, I contracted to fit a new copper gutter above the eaves like before, but this time it would be a much more functional system.

While up on a 2 story ladder I had to carefully cut the old steel out of here in pieces with an electric shear. Then inspect the wood for repair and replacement. I added hundreds of deck screws to help hold it together better. Since this took several days I brought some flat aluminum sheet metal with me to cover the exposed part as I worked across this 40'+ span.

The back of the old steel gutter worked as the drip edge flashing, since I was not able to remove it without tearing up the roofing shingles. If you click on the right photo it shows the copper flashing sealed to the outer face of the gutter to cover that gap.

Just before starting on their project they asked me to make them 3 custom scuppers and cover some of the rake edge boards with copper instead of working to strip them for repainting, to dress up the front and left side of their house.

Here are some shots of the scupper fabrication made from some copper gutters.

Here is the 4 custom white painted aluminum scuppers I made for this house

You can see how they started out just being a section of gutter that was run through my gutter machine.

I have to make careful calculations after visualizing this shape to diagram it out on paper. Then draw it out on the metal for cutting and folding.

Then the front corners need to be sealed and riveted together with the overlapping seams.

Here I am drawing out the back side to be cut from this sheet of aluminum to seal the back of the scupper.

Then I bent the bottom down to form the lower section of the scupper.

This may look simple, but it is a very tedious process. I am lucky to be able to build 2 of these in a full days work.

The bottom section has to be made from a separate piece and attached.

Here are 3 of these set together at different angles.

The back gutter was held on with straps nailed on top of the roofing with the gutter just dangling below. I built this fascia board covered with pre-painted aluminum to mount the gutter to.

I added an expansion joint in the center of the gutter as well. It was very difficult to access this side of the house with the hill side dropping off behind and the roof was way too steep to work from above.

Just to connect the downspouts on the side of the house was very difficult; extending my ladder as far as it goes and standing on the top rung. At one position I had to set the ladder on the neighbor's roof to get to the upper downspout and scupper to reach it. I was not sure I was going to be able to pull it off.

Here is the installation of the built-in scuppers. It was very challenging to remove the rotten metal and wood to rebuild this part of the house.

In these shots you can see the more plain old steel scupper she had and the new replacement.

This shows the deck screws I added for more strength before installing the fascia board over this old wood molding.

355.48' of white aluminum gutters & Herritage Cream downspouts
56.5' of 20oz copper gutters & DS w/removal- $2,661.67
13 corners and end-caps to miter - $550
Hard install - $880
137.5' of hinged leaf screens - $489.38
8 larger no-clog outlets - $380
6 leaf-catchers - $270
93.75' of drip-edge flashing - $369.38
30' + connectors ABS sewer pipe - $142.50
40' of custom copper flashing covers in front of the copper gutter - $300
6 custom copper scuppers - $2,000

$7,531.05 Grand Total

From: ellen@esmcpa.c*m
Subject: RE: Jean Stevenson's House
Date: Sat, 29 Mar 2008

Thanks, David, I knew you would take care of it. Hope the weather gives you a break pretty soon—you may need good weather to look at this as it is the section from the very top roof to the second story roof. That was amazing to see the snow so many times this week, although it cut into some of the spring break fun.

Thanks again, and take care. Ellen