• Checking Your Gutter in Spring Prevents Summertime Problems
  ARA Content
• DIY for Beginners - Painting a Fence
  Sapna Thacker

Checking Your Gutter in Spring Prevents Summertime Problems
courtesy of ARA Content

(ARA) - Gutter maintenance is something homeowner's tend to think about only after a problem occurs. They may soon discover that poorly functioning rain gutters can cause many problems, including foundation erosion, basement leaks and rotten fascia boards. Spring is the best time to check your home's gutter system for damages from ice and snow, heavy rains or clogged debris. If gutter inspections aren't your forte, whole gutter systems can be replaced with the modern gutter system.

Once you've decided to tackle the job of inspecting your gutters, find a sturdy ladder to support you. If you have permanently installed gutter screens or gutter guards, they may be difficult to observe from the ground. It's a good idea to check each run of gutters from a ladder, to make sure they are clean and free of debris before making any repairs. If your downspouts also have screens at the top, clear them as well, or replace the screens if they're damaged.

While inspecting your gutters, you may find that over time, the spikes that hold the aluminum to the fascia board have loosened. Either drive the loose spikes back into place, or replace them with longer ones for improved support. Downspouts and other fittings can also be pulled away by snow and ice and may need to be reattached. Gutter neglect can also result in leaks. Most leaks occur at a joint and can be repaired with rubber tape or self-adhesive tape. The patches should be placed a few inches on either side of the leak area.

If you're not a do-it-yourself kind of homeowner and the thought of tall ladders makes you queasy, the modern gutter system, known as the Rainhandler, turns do-it-yourself into done-for-you. Rainhandler's unique louver design converts a stream of rainwater into a two-to four-foot wide swath of droplets that are absorbed by shrubs and lawn beyond the eaves.

Rainhandler provides a maintenance-free gutter system for homeowners and creates other benefits. According to the company's VP Operations, Bob Zuklie, the single biggest problem of homes with no gutters or clogged gutters is ground erosion. Ground erosion can undermine a home's foundation and cause structural damage, undermine walks and driveways and create safety hazards. Not only does the dispersion of water prevent ground erosion, it allows the transformation of what might otherwise be a torrential downpour of rain streaming from old gutters into a gentle distribution of water droplets, protecting shrubbery and flowers below.

The design of the product's aluminum louvers also permits leaves and debris to simply blow away, since there is no gutter-like container. These louvers also prevent potentially damaging ice build-up from forming in gutters and eventually leaking into your home. "I used to have a problem in the winter with my conventional gutters with ice build up over my bow window and then the water backing up and running into the living room," explained a Warwick, Rhode Island resident. "The problem has been solved since I installed the system."

Whether you decide to hang on to your traditional gutters, or replace them with the Rainhandler modern gutter, the required care for conventional gutters is something homeowners should think about before a problem exists. Regular maintenance and preventative measures can protect you home from possible disasters that can end up costing you hundreds of dollars in the future. Gutter maintenance demonstrates that protecting areas of your home doesn't necessarily begin from the ground up.

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DIY for Beginners - Painting a Fence
©Copyright 2002 Sapna Thacker

Believe me, I am an absolute beginner when it comes to all things DIY, but recently, my other half and I could see the obvious need to paint and protect our fence. Now many experts will hold, I am sure, vastly different opinions on the best ways to paint a fence to what I am about to describekj, but we didn't follow any of their advice. We just set about it in our own way and hey - it was an experience.

Before we even picked up a brush, we had to make two very difficult decisions:

1. That we would actually paint the darn thing ourselves and not hire someone to do it
2. Choosing a colour, we both liked and that blended in nicely with look and feel of our house

Paint it ourselves? Yeah! I thought – that will be fun! My wiser half looked at me incredulously, “…it will be cheaper and not much else” he said. “Surely ye jest dear hub” he heard me sing as I ran off to check my wardrobe for appropriate fence painting apparel.

Choosing a colour I thought would be relatively easy – we aren’t a very funky couple so blues, reds and purples were out of the question, but neither are we a very morose couple so black and dark brown were also out of the question. Hubby went off to the hardware store and came back with `Harvest Gold’ – and excitedly we began our painting adventure. As we exuberantly brushed on that first colour, we very quickly realised that the creators of this colour were obviously harvesting oranges! If we continued, we faced the prospect of endless days and nights of this garish shade – blazing out at us at every opportunity and most despicably making our barbeques invisible against a backdrop of this angry sunshine colour. Back hubby went to the hardware store and this time returned with `Harvest Brown’. This we found too dull so yours truly chirped up with “let us try mixing them!” Let me tell you folks that this worked. The deep dull brown mixed with the wake-up orange resulted in a sultry blend of colours that promised long languishing summer afternoons entertaining as the last rays of sun would be picked up and highlighted in the backdrop of our fence. Yes – colour is important. In our defence, I would simply say that DIY stores should provide sample pots of paint for fences! We could have just bought two or three (or more) of these (as yet imaginary) little pots – tried and tested them and then invested in the larger bucket-o-paints.

The rest was relatively easy – once we got the knack of it. Ours is a fence with interlocked palings so that they overlap with large connect posts between panels and cross beams. There was a mixture of smooth, heavily knotted, thick and thin palings. As the palings were interlocked and overlapping, we found it best to start with the topmost paling and work across and from top to bottom. Done in this way, we avoided double painting certain areas – like the posts and cross beams.

We both had a large fence/woodwork brush with natural bristles and we threw ourselves into the job. Well – spiders and other little things came out of the proverbial `woodwork’ so we kept thinking that maybe it would have been better to have prepared the surface by scrubbing down the fence with a large cleaning brush prior to painting… but – hey, we had already done one panel and so why stop when your on a roll?

Well, there were areas that the big brush just did not want to get into, like right up close between the palings and cross beams and other fiddly bits. We both agreed that a smaller brush for the detailing would be a good idea. So hubby went off to the DIY store yet again, whilst I made a cup of Twinings’ Darjeeling…mmmmmmmm.

Some time later, we resumed painting duties, and found that doing the fiddly bits first with the little brush left long easy bits to do with the bigger brush and everything seemed to proceed a lot faster from here on in and we also found we were using far less paint. You see, with the larger brush we had been loading it up heavily and then trying to push the paint into the fiddly bits. To date, we have completed 6 panels and a gate – approx 25% of the total and winter is fast approaching. Actually, I find it to be quite relaxing so the obvious reasons for not having finished the job, don’t apply – just time management I guess (difficult with a demanding nine month old) … but hey, the fence isn’t going anywhere and neither are we – so slow and steady is a fine pace to complete this first of my DIY projects!

Best of luck painting!

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