Gutters--fascia gutters, chain downspouts

[MikeT]

Greetings,

The roof is now shingled, and before I take down the scaffolding, I thought it would make sense for me to hang gutters.  I was talking to one of the guys who is helping me, and he recommended "fascia gutters".  I will explore some more, but I wondered if this is a certain style of gutter that affixes to my fascia boards? 

Also, I gather that aluminum is better than vinyl, but I wanted to get some opinions from folks here. 

Finally, has anyone here had experience with using chains as downspouts?  I am interested in this non clogging option.  What are the downsides.

As always, I appreciate your thoughts.

Mike

[MountainDon]

When I had gutters (years ago back home) I had aluminum, 5 inch wide, custom one piece gutters installed. They had several different colors available. The material is in a big roll and they form it on site. You have a minimal number of joints.

I've never seen any gutters that did not mount to the fascia. Maybe there are some but I've never seen them.

I've wondered about the chains myself. I'm  interested in hearing experiences. For the mountain cabin I'm thinking of installing gutters at some point. I haven't decided on metal or vinyl, but I do know they'll be conventional 10 foot sections. Cost too much to get the one piece guys from here up there.

[PEG688]

  My guess is he's talking about a "built-in / built -up " gutter. where the roofing , generally torch down or rolled roofing forms a gutter  behind the fascia and the down spout drops out of the soffit.

  If your using John's plans the roof is to steep for a built-up gutter , they are ill advised at any rate , they leak and have issues even when done  by some one who does the for a living.

It's very hard today to beat continuous Aluminum gutters , no seams to leak except the end caps and the down spout drops.

The down side to chain down spouts is getting the water into the tight line drain , if you have one . They would not conform to the IRC , IF your following / subject to it. You could I guess drop the chain into the tight line , IF you have one and that would get most of the water into the line.  They do corrode , they can just by there weight pull the gutter down or bend the down spout drop , IF ice is a issue where you live , the ice builds up causing a lot of weight to be focused on the drop point.

So those IF's may be issues.

One outfit makes a "foil gutter" thin strips that "cut" the rain at the eave line and disperse it more like mist ,


http://www.rainhandler.com/shop/product_features.php?osCsid=b70b722e792d9fcc7325fad6ff42cb9b

I used them once they work quite well IF you don't have a place you need to walk under to enter the building. The place I used them was church office that had gable end roof protection over both side walks leading to the doors . That would be the only down side that I can see