How can I configure rain gutter between two dormers?

Question

The lack of gutters between the 2 roof dormers is causing a hole to form in the brick step by the front door. A small ravine is also forming in the dirt next to the step.

The rest of the houses in the neighborhood do not have these dormers, so I can't draw inspiration from them either.

How can I solve this in a reasonably aesthetic way? I'd like to avoid a gutter crossing either dormer, and I'd also hate to have a downspout down the middle of the house!

Older picture, featuring angle iron water diverter:

Answer 1

Run a closed pipe near the back corner of the eave the whole width of the house and paint it to match the wall. Then run a pipe inside the eave structure to pass water from the middle gutter to the horizontal pipe and then to the downspouts.

Because the house has a lot of horizontal features already, it should blend in reasonably well:

You will need a filter on the input end of the pipe to prevent it from clogging.

Answer 2

It's impossible to see what your roof looks like from this one picture. But I am visualizing a significant roof above where the dormers join into the main roofline. If it were me, I'd look and see if I could put some sort of raised water guide on the roof above the dormer line, redirecting water coming from the upper part of the roof in that center section to the outsides of the dormers. Won't do anything about the rain below the dormer height on the roof, but would at least get any upper rain away from coming down that center area.

Answer 3

Consider a rain chain from a short gutter rather than a downspout. It'll be much less conspicuous. You might terminate it at the lower roof or one edge of it.

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Answer 4

Another solution might be to add a filler panel in each dormer (for aesthetic reasons) down to match existing fascia, and simply run a new section of gutter between the two existing gutters.

Answer 5

You can gutter it. The down pipe will look ugly, though, unless you can put it inside the wall, and that wall will be pretty solid between the door and the bay window so could get messy inside.

Or you can gutter across the span of the dormers, still ugly.

Or you can return the gutter into the dormer, run across the wall at lintel height, and then go back out to join the end of the gutter, which seems like a lot of work. Gutter corners are tricky. You also might need to redo the slope on the gutters.

Answer 6

On our 2-story house, I didn't want to have to climb up a 2 story ladder to clean my gutters, so I bought rain handlers, which is a type of rain dispersal system. Seems like that solution would work between your dormers. It would disperse the rain along that roof segment, so that the water doesn't all land in one line.

Answer 7

You have a few options. Some of the following options are not necessarily cheap, or match an aesthetic you would be interested in.

1. Remove the dormers. Turn the roof into the same flat plane for a roof line that your neighbours have. You can then run your eavestroughing (gutters) along the entire front. You should then only require one downspout instead of 2. There is no reason why you could not have two downspouts and just slope the eavestroughing from the middle out. For a single downspout I would keep the one at the outside corner (left side of photo).

2. Combine the two dormers into a single dormer. This could either be an arched shape or peaked. This would remove drainage through the middle issue.

3. From your description the problem that is annoying you is the damage at ground level. You could put in some eavestroughing that would slope from either end to the middle with a stub of a down spout to simply direct and concentrate the run off. This will keep the run off from undermining your front step. Now to prevent the hole that would form below the drainage stub, you can place a rain barrel to catch the water. Alternatively to the rain barrel you could place a large rock as a decorative feature that would redirect the water stream in another direction. Another option would be to plant a large shrub directly underneath like a cedar hedge. Heck even a bird bath would work.

4. leave it as is and view the trench that forms in the dirt as a gardening maintenance item. For the portion under the stairs, if your step is interlocking brick, you can also view this as periodic maintenance. Lift the bricks, place some more bedding sand, compact and contour as needed, drop the interlock back in. Alternatively you can replace the interlock with textured concrete that is stained red and has all the grooves to make it look like interlock.