Help with Unusual Gutter Elbow Solution
adel
3 years ago
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GN Builders L.L.C
3 years agoRelated Discussions
bought a house with pond, can anyone help a newbie pond owner?
Comments (18)I ditto tiller and others. Good advice from all so far. The only thing I would add about chemicals...is that there is one bottle of stuff you really should have, and that is a water treatment for Chlorine and Chlorimines. Chlorine is not that bad if you add less than 10-20% of your total amount at once. The fish can get Gill Burn if they play in the hose spray so put the hose in a area they can't get to. The chlorine will hurt your bacteria colonies in your bio filter but won't wipe em out. After a day or two contact with the air will dissipate the chlorine (it will go faster if you have an airator or waterfall). Chlorimines though are baaaad. They will never leave your pond without being treated with an additive. You can call your water company and see if they use chlorimines. If they do, then you need to get in the habit of using a neutralizer every water change. If they don't then you can get away without, unless you notice your plants being hurt by chlorine when you change the water. "Bad stuff" on the bottom are organic compounds like leaves, fish poop, dead fish etc. As it decomposes it will create a layer of mud called "muck". It's black and smells bad. If your pond ever has a sewer odor that's a sure sign that your muck has run amok and the fish are in danger. When this happens oxygen levels drop and you start getting brown algae and your water will look like rootbeer. Anaerobic bacteria start to go to work in the oxygen free environment. This is a fish death sentence. You should regularly scoop out the majority of the muck leaving as little as possible on the bottom after it settles back down. "Regularly" depends on your pond. More trees, dust, pollen, weaker filter etc mean you need to clean it up more or less than others. There is no rule about how often to clean. To clean out muck, you just need to scoop it out. You can do that by hand, with a bucket or shop vac. One thing I like is this little attachment that goes on the end of a garden hose. The flow of the hose water creates venturi suction that pushes the muck into a little nylon bag. Keep in mind that with any of these options you will stir up the muck and it will take a day or so to see improvement. If you do it regularly, the stirred up muck isn't a problem for the fish. But if you have a deep layer of it you might want to do what destany said above, and move the fish into a container for a bit (filled with pond water!) as all those bad compounds will be spiked during the clean. If your depth is closer to 3 feet I would still think about either getting rid of the goldfish (donate them to a pet store or other ponder) or the koi. With either 3 koi or 11 goldfish you have about the right fishload. But with both, you have about double what you will need in a year or so when they get big. If you are dead set on keeping all of them, you need to plan on losing some to stress or plan on getting a heavy duty biofilter and/or doing regular muck sweeping....See MoreLeaf guards on rain gutters?
Comments (10)I work on ladders often so I have experience with gutter guards. Anything made out of plastic will fail. They will get crushed sooner or later by the weight of snow or warped by the heat of the sun. Gutter topper is a huge waste of money in my opinion as the gutters will often not collect the rain water or snow melt. The only gutter guards that I've seen that work and I'm not sure of the name but they are made out of steel mesh and coated with black plastic. They are only suitable with 5 inch gutters and asphalt composition roofs. In some situations they will not fit properly. Also, in general, the trees in the area need to have large leaves that will blow away and they work best if the trees are not hanging over the house. Gutters still often need to be cleaned and it can be a real headache with guards installed. Gutter guards of any type can also lead to problems such as getting water sliding behind the gutters because debris builds up between the roof and guard. This can lead to damaged soffit or fascia which are expensive repairs....See More(X-Post) Crawl Space Condensation & Humidity Solutions
Comments (47)@T Burns I don't have an ATMOX system, but from what I've seen they have one inside and one outside sensor input on their controls. One outdoor should be sufficient, but for a large crawlspace I'd prefer more than one just because humidity CAN be localized if there is bulk water such as a flood or plumbing leak. My home had mold and rot only in certain areas--generally the east (downwind) side. The ATMOX optional louvers don't appear air-tight but passively flap down over the opening when the fan isn't running, like on a dryer vent. It's probably no worse than a typical sliding crawlspace vent. Plotting temp and RH over time is a great idea. From there you can obtain dew point and get an idea how often an ATMOX system would be able to run with just fans to keep the RH below 60%. With tight clearance between floor framing and the ground, the joists will track ground temperature by radiant heat exchange unless you have lots of airflow. You can get an idea of what RH will be at the joist surfaces by looking at those temperatures and figure out what max average dew point should be allowed. From there you can look at historical dew points for your area and get an idea of what percentage of the time fans can actually dry the crawlspace. As the ATMOX folks point out in their literature, it takes an extended problem to elevate wood moisture content enough to cause mold. You may be able to get by with a dehumidifier for half the year or less. But I would definitely not install one of these systems without a dehumidifier as backup, integrated into the control logic. If nothing else, it will come in handy if you get a flood or a fan goes bad and you need brute force drying. There might be some aspects of encapsulation that could benefit your situation, but I'm leery about arbitrarily introducing spray foam, foam board, or plastic-wrapped batts, like the Youtube encapsulation guys do, without really thinking through the moisture transport situation. You could easily end up trapping moisture or hiding rot or termite activity in an old house that wasn't built to modern codes. For example, my home has poly flashing between the rim & band joists and the brick, lacks a brick ledge, and was not built with pressure treated sills. If the brick really gets soaked, the framing gets damp. This is a once-a-year event at most, but it has a way to dry. The last thing I'd want to do is to trap moisture in the lumber. Also, my home's crawlspace vents also admit air to the gap between the brick and sheathing, and blocking those gaps with foam board will reduce ventilation behind the brick. Retrofitting an older home has to be taken case-by-case. I wouldn't trust most one-size-fits-all encapsulation contractors to consider that. I would probably never be totally satisfied with an ATMOX system, since the control logic isn't arbitrarily customizable, but it's an incremental improvement over full-time passive ventilation that we know doesn't work in summer. Automating the ventilation and combining occasional dehumidifier use may be all you need to banish the mold if there are no drainage issues. Thanks for the tip about the upcoming revision. I'll have to get in touch with them to see if they're adding fan diagnostics....See MoreUnorthadox gutter protection idea
Comments (11)You want your gutters to be as open and clear as possible. Putting a gravel "filter" into them would not work as air borne soil (dust) and decomposing leaves, etc would soon clog them. Well, soon enough. Heavy rain would overflow them even if they weren't clogged. I'd just use 4" PVC for the rain drains and have some wash out ports or cleanouts installed , as many as needed. 4" PVC will take anything a gutter down spout will put into it. Given that it is sloped properly. 1/4 inch per foot is an aggressive slope for buried water drains. Alternately, use a spun material, not unlike those 3M scrubbies pads, but on a larger scale, to cap the gutters in question. Cut strips of sufficient width and bend it into a U shape and pop into the gutter, legs down. The tension in the material will cause the legs to spring against the gutter sides. This leaves your guttering mostly open for water and the tops mostly closed off, certainly for leaves. Material of this type is used in industry in a lot of applications. Various openess, densities, etc. for filtration of both air and liquids. The one I'm familiar with is used in primary water filtration banks in a tertiary filtration plant. Its grey, if that helps. ;) I've seen it installed such that the up side is attached under the roofing material and then it comes down and into the gutter, an L shape instead of my U shape. I prefer the U as you can remove it easily and back flush. Sorry, didn't mean for this to get so long....See Moreadel
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