LESLIE: Mary in New Hampshire is dealing with an icy porch in the winter. Let’s see if we can fix this.
MARY: I have a fairly new home. Where the roof of the house and the roof of the garage come, it was just gushing down water on my stairs; so I had gutters put on. But the gutters come at a right angle right over the porch and it’s still dripping; causing ice to form on the stairs.
TOM: OK.
MARY: And I want to know do you have any ideas.
TOM: Well – so the gutters intersect right over the porch and the problem is that you have two roofs that kind of come together and the water overflows the gutter? Is that what’s going on?
MARY: Right.
TOM: If the gutter is leaking at an intersection, that’s not unusual. You may need to seal that gutter where it comes together. You can use some roofing cement on the inside of that gutter to seal it because it should be a watertight seal. If you’re …
MARY: Roofing cement.
TOM: Roofing cement, right; inside the gutter, where the seam is. If that’s what leaking, then that’s how you fix it.
MARY: (overlapping voices) OK.
TOM: Now, if because you have two roofs that are intersecting that there’s so much water coming down there and it’s overflowing or it’s splashing, then that’s another problem. In that case, what you would want to do is go up higher on the roof and put in something called a diverter; which basically is sort of a piece of metal that is attached to the roof, that catches some of the water and runs it away from that porch area so it diverts some of the water off of that intersection that’s overflowing and splashing. Do you follow me?
MARY: Oh, I got you. Alright.
TOM: So, two things: repair the leaky gutter and install the diverter. You’ll be good to go.
Leave a Reply