Fixing the gutter and drying up the ground
It turns out that Rhonda is on the right track --- the gutters on our
roof would have been installed correctly if the whole trailer didn't
tilt
toward the west. It started raining, so we haven't finished the
project yet, but I think we're going to first try taking out the screws
that attach the gutter to the side of the roof, then will give the
gutter more of a
tilt, if possible, so we can keep the downspout where it is.
Worst-case scenario, we'll move the downspout to the other end.
Interestingly, in a heavy rain Friday morning, I noticed that the
downspout seemed to be working pretty well despite the incorrect
tilt. Sure, a bit of water was drizzling out the other end, but
most of the roof runoff appeared to be going down the downspout and into
the greywater wetland, which seemed well able to handle the extra water.
On the downside, it turns out that the high groundwater in that spot
isn't entirely due to water pouring off the trailer roof right
there. Even with that rain being captured by the downspout, water
was pooling right at the surface, meaning I need to keep working if I
don't want the grape and kiwi I'll be installing there to drown.
I'm hoping the extra water comes from the other downspout twelve feet
uphill which spits out water falling on the front porch, but I haven't
quite decided if there's a solution short of channeling that water into
the greywater wetland too. I'd like to have a rain barrel at the
corner of the porch to make watering seedlings easier in the summer, but
we get so much rain that the barrel would do no good in the winter.
Finally, just for fun, I
piled up lots of rocks around the kiwi and grape mounds. Hopefully
these will act as thermal mass and they'll definitely make the plants
more visible so they won't accidentally get weedeaten. And we're
also thinking of taking Brian's advice
and making the trellis out of wire since he makes an excellent point
about the shade potential of lumber. I can't wait to see this area
in full greenery in summer 2014!
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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.
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As long as the top of the gutter at the far end is higher than the top of the outlet, it should still work.
Nevertheless, it is usually a good idea to use a line level to lay out the desired slope of the gutter. The usual minimal slope is 1/4" per 10 ft of length. You might want to use a little bit more because buildings tend to sag over time.