Now that you are a homeowner, spring means a lot more than Ernie Harwell on the radio and Sundays on the golf course. Houses are particularly demanding of your time just now, and I'm about to add to your list!
Gutters and downspouts take a beating in the winter, from the expansion of ice as it freezes, as well as the weight of the ice itself. If you look at your gutters now, you'll probably find that many of the corner seams are leaky, gutters are pulled away from the house, some of the downspouts have split along the back seams and extensions have been crushed or lost. Fixing this stuff isn't really hard, but it does involve ladder work, and therefore a good deal of care and common sense.
You can seal gutter joints with caulk on the inside of the joints. High-silicone caulks work well for this. Just be sure it says "aluminum" somewhere on the label. Clean up the metal surface first, using sandpaper or a wire brush, so your caulk is sticking to metal and not loose oxide. If you need to refasten a joint, or add an extension, I recommend using pop-rivets. These little fasteners are installed with an inexpensive device called a Rivetool (R), and have the advantage of not leaving a sharp screw point inside the downnspout to catch leaves, etc.
New downspouts cost about $9 per 10 foot length, and can be cut with tin snips or a hacksaw. Once you get the hang of the Rivetool, installing them is easy. New gutter sections are a different story. Cutting them to length without distortion, installing fittings for downspouts, and supporting them to the house are all more difficult jobs than they look, and you should consider a contractor for this work. Fortunately, gutters don't wear out often. If you have old galvanized steel up there, it will start rusting through at about 35 years. Aluminum gutters could last forever if not for external damage from trees, ladders and ice.
Ok, folks, the first anniversary is paper, the fifth is tin and the 25th is silver. When is the power tool anniversary? That's right, there isn't one. If you keep waiting for him to present you with that lovely cordless reversible drill/driver, you'll wait forever. Unless, of couse, someone is sensitive and sensible enough to get you one as a housewarming gift! In any case, cordless power tools have advanced so much in the last few years that they are now worthwhile for the home handyperson. A few years ago, they were outrageously expensive, not very powerful and had short battery lives. This has all changed. I recently picked up a DeWalt 12 volt cordless drill that I use as a power screwdriver. It's variable speed, reversible, has arm-twisting torque, recharges in less than an hour, and doesn't need a chuck key! It just made about half of my portable power tool collection obselete! And to think, Mother's day and Father's day are just around the corner!
By the way, did all of you remember to cycle all the circuit breakers in your service panel just before you reset your clocks? The idea is to operate the mechanical parts of the breaker twice a year, to make sure they are not stuck, and can work to interrupt an overload if one occurs. Every breaker, including the main, should be turned off and back on. Of course, doing this will mess up every digital timer in your house, which is why I recommend doing it at the Daylight Saving Time change; you were just about to reset all those clocks, anyway!
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copyright 2000 Matthew J. Bezanson