Why Does Your House Need Rain Gutters?
Rain gutters are one of the most durable exterior parts of any home. With effective installation and maintenance, they can last for decades removing excess rainwater for your home. These rain gutter ideas will not only help you reduce utility costs and water usage, but also add aesthetic value to your home.
When you look at a sloped-roof house, it feels like you do not need gutters for the rain. In fact, you would rather buy them for some beautiful rain gutter ideas as a complementary feature for your home. Sloped roofs guarantee the water will fall directly to the ground and prevent pooling.
However, slopes accelerate the flow of water from your roof straight to the ground. If you have a garden, then it can dislodge the soil around the foundation of your house. It can wreak huge havoc against any nearby gardens in your yard as well.
How Often Should You Maintain Them?
Rain gutters need to be cleaned and free of debris brought by a previous storm or passing rain. You’ll find huge amounts of dead leaves, dust, soot, small stones, and more. These will block the water passageways and downspouts. A blocked downspout will add tremendous weight enough to dislodge your gutters in the process.
Creative Rain Gutter Ideas
Rain gutters can help you save money by giving you a source of reusable water. They can also add to the aesthetic of your home. Here are creative rain gutter ideas that show the different potential of rain gutters.
Save The Water for Gardening
Gardens use up more than a liter of tap water a day. To reduce your water costs during the rainy season, install a downspout that connects to a drum to collect rainwater. You can use multiple plastic drums that you can rotate each time another container fills up. Using a two-garden hose siphon, you can use the water in the drums for gardening purposes.
Add a Protective Plant Frame
Downspouts need not to look unattractive. They can be stylish. However, using a wood or stone facade to cover the front wall downspout is expensive and laborious to do. One simple way to add to the aesthetic to your home is to use a protective plant frame.
Using the typical protective stainless steel frame for front wall downspouts, homeowners can grow hanging plants such as vines to give the downspout a natural appeal.
Divert Water to a Patio Pond
Diverting water to patio ponds is one of the best practical rain gutter ideas. Instead of directing water by attaching downspouts to water drums, you can redirect the water from your downspout to your pond. Provided the pond water is deep enough to accommodate the rainwater, it is a practical idea to use.
In some cases, you can redirect the rainwater towards areas that require water. Doing this eliminates the need to store water in drums by automatically nourishing the soil with water.
Greenhouse Rainwater
Greenhouse owners can install rain gutters along the founding steel of their greenhouses, usually at the ridge of the roof, and puncture small holes into the material. The rain gutter becomes an automatic sprinkler that distributes water evenly into the greenhouse. To limit the amount of water and remove tremendous rain gutter stress, homeowners can install downspouts that direct rainwater to a plastic drum.
