Estimating Mirror

I would like share with you a great way to see what's going on in your eavestrough without needing to go up a ladder. This method we use in our estimating system is much safer and I hope someone may benefit from seeing this, homeowners and contractors alike.

We constructed it out of a basic mirror mounted on an expandable painters pole.

It's easy to handle and takes just a little practice to get the angle right. The picture makes it seem like the mirror is too far away to see but in reality, it works fine.

Its a great tool to see if you have debris in your eavestrough or problems with the edge of your shingles.

This is so much safer then going up 2 storeys on a ladder. We can observe things like standing water, how it's fastened, and the condition of the shingles on this Toronto home.







For more information about what we do in Toronto, North York and Scarborough, please visit our website www.eavestrough.ca

Buchner Manufacturing Aluminum Supplier

Buchner Manufacturing is a quality supplier of aluminum of products like eavestrough, soffit and aluminum roofing. A family run business who puts much of their focus on providing quality eavestrough supplies to the discriminating contractor. I have posted some pictures of their New Market location. They also have a location in Pefferlaw which manufacturers the downpipes and other components of the eavestrough system.

A look at their aluminum roofing.

Some of their products on display in the showroom.

Gerhard Buchner running the showroom today. Since its the start of Febuary he has a chance to sit down and prepare for the upcoming season.

A large coil of aluminum that gets made into various products.

Different machines to make products like soffits and trims.

Spinning off a large roll to aluminum to make 100 foot long rolls of capping coil. Capping coil is used for things like fascia and capping windows and doors at a customers home.

With so many colors to offer, much space is needed for storage.

Visit the Buchner website at http://www.buchnermfg.com/

Visit North Shore Eavestroughing at http://www.eavestrough.ca/ 

Soffit, Fascia, Leaf Solution and LEDS

A nice North York bungalow, complete with soffit and fascia, eavestrough, leaf guard and automated LED pot lights.

Here are a couple of pictures of the old system:

This old soffit system was around 30 years old and was done with white for the soffit and fascia and chestnut brown for the eavestrough. Many people now prefer to have all their soffit, fascia and eavestrough all one color.

The old eavestrough was a one piece hooded system. It got damaged and a contractor tried to piece it together with standard 5 inch eavestrough which did not match. The homeowner could not locate the dealer for this specific hooded leaf guard so full replacement was pursued with us.

When buying a niche or specialty product ensure that the company will be around to do repairs if needed down the road or you could run into problems like this homeowner.

Finishing touches on the front entrance. Installing aluminum capping to the beam under the veranda.

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The warm white 2 watt LEDS are a great way to accent the front of the home. 4 lights are a cost effective way to create curb appeal for this home. 4 LED lights installed will cost about $800.00 to $1000.00 depending on the level of difficulty.

Leaf Solution, our premium leaf protection, was installed to eliminate any maintenance in regard to leaves. It costs significantly more then the T-Rex but it does have some advantages. Stainless steel mesh over an aluminum frame keeps all debris out and does a great job of shedding the leaves. Just by looking at it, it seems there is no way the water will go in. However it works flawlessly on all roofs no matter how heavy the Toronto rain.

It costs about $12.00 to $15.00 per foot installed. An average home of 200 feet of eavestrough would be $2400.00 to $3000.00 depending on the level of difficulty. This does not include the cost of new eavestrough and you want to ensure your eavestrough are newer before investing in the Leaf Solution. You do not want to install this product over questionable eavestroughs and find out in a few years the Leaf Solution has to be removed and reinstalled!

A double check of the property, completion of our quality checklists and another happy client!

Would you like us to come to your home in North York, Scarborough or other areas in and near Toronto to provide a free quote for The leaf Solution or the AluRex TRex Leaf Solution? Call us at 416-615-0443

Visit our website www.eavestrough.ca

Automated Rainwater Harvesting

Its a great idea to capture some of the rainwater that comes from your roof for watering your plants and flowers.

These barrels automatically fill with a downspout diverter and slowly drain out over the next day via a soaker hose. This is great because usually by the next rainfall the barrels will be empty.

We set up a couple of rain barrels side by side. They were hidden in dead space between a fence and a privacy fence. We built a 2 foot high platform for them to rest on. This will give better water pressure out the soaker hose we installed.

We used a Fiskars rain diverter. This is a great set up because it automatically fills the barrels until full during a rain. No having to go out and flip a diverter switch!  Here is the link to the Fiskars DiverterPro: http://www.fiskars.ca/Products/Yard-and-Garden/Rain-Barrel-Systems/DiverterPro You can buy these at the Home Depot.

We like how it works but getting the hose at the perfect height so the device would get backpressure and sense the barrels were full took many adjustments. So have patience. Another point about this device is that only a small amount of water coming down the pipe gets diverted to the barrels. If you wanted to catch all the water you may want to choose a manual diverter so you can divert 100 percent of the water into the barrels. Using the Fiskars, a short intense downpour may not fill the barrels quick enough for your liking.

Connect the two barrels at the bottom using some simple pipe fittings and hose. They will both fill up at the same time this way.

We used a soaker hose specifically designed for a low pressure application like rain barrels. The green hose shown comes with the barrels and is used to fill buckets etc. The soaker hose was connected to this. This way the soaker hose will receive water if there is any in the barrels. The soaker hose was called Mr Soaker Hose:  http://www.rainbarrelsoakerhose.com/index.htm 

It comes with simple connections that go together easily. It transitions from solid pipe to the soaker hose just as it meets the mulch.

There is a small filter that comes with the soaker hose. It ensures that no debris will make its way into the soaker hose and plug it up. Make sure this is easily accesible as it has to be washed out frequently.

The downspout extension was fastened to the fence and given a slight slope which deposited the water from the downspout about 50 feet into the backyard due to the slope of the yard. Any closer and the water would run back to the house.

The cedars were perfect for hiding the downspout we attached to the fence.

Here is a video from our YouTube channel. The Fiskars DiverterPro was in the test phase at this point. Once it was sealed with caulking it did not leak like in the video.

A quick video showing the amount of water coming out the extention pipe near the end of the cedars.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kgfos-tBZUY

We get plenty of rain in Toronto. If you are interested in rain barrels to harvest your rain water, visit our website www.eavestrough.ca

Double Barrel Downspouts

What do you do when there is only one good location for a downspout on the entire home? Well... you could do a side by side downspout like the ones shown below.

It's best to precisely slope all the eavestroughs to the corner that has good drainage.

Most homes, in the Toronto area, have good drainage in more than just one area. There are just a few unique situations.

The home below had more than one downspout location but not without depending on the old clay sewer pipes which the homeowner did not want to reuse. There is a good reason for that as they are prone to leaking water around your foundation as they degrade.

We did a full replacement of the old system as shown below.

The entire upper level eavestroughs were graded around to the front and we added a downspout to connect it to the lower eavestrough. This prevents water from running down the roof and damaging shingles.

We added 2 XL 3.5 inch by 3.5 inch downpipes at the front right corner

The water from the entire house will drain to the front yard.

Due to the slope of the ground near the home we had to extend out to a safe exit point.

The video below explains in a bit more detail.

Another home we completed had a similar challenge with only one safe location for a downspout.

With a bit of effort and creative thinking most houses can have an effective eavestrough system which safely transports all roof water to a harmless location. This keeps your basement nice and dry as well as protected.

Interested in replacing your eavestroughs and downpipes and live in Scarborough, North York or other areas in or near Toronto?  Visit our website www.eavestrough.ca 

Keep Squirrels and Raccoons Out

Many Toronto area homes we encounter have a gap under the first layer of shingles that provide easy access for animals to go straight into the soffit area and from there, into the attic.

This is easiest to fix when the roof is being done as any professional roofer should see this as a problem and install a custom drip edge made of metal and large enough to span the gap.

Many roofers make the mistake of just draping the new shingle over the hole, hoping no animals will poke their little heads under the shingles and see the opening. The animals will see an opportunity and chew their way in.

The drip edge can be installed after the shingles are installed if the shingles are still flexible enough to be lifted a bit with out damaging them. It's cheaper and easier to ensure the roofer you hire to do your roof sees this as a problem that needs to be fixed.

We service Scarborough, North York and many areas in and around Toronto. If you have a home in our area, we would be happy to provide a quote for you.
Visit our website at www.eavestrough.ca

6 Inch Eavestrough and Heater Cables

A recent project included a tricky roof area with large valleys, a flat roof overflow issues, a leaf problem, and a major ice dam problem. Lots of issues to deal with!

Let's start with the existing heater cables. Poorly done with many serious issues like overlapping heater cables -not good as they could overheat.

Hard to believe but it's in a knot!

It has an existing auto turn on device that was relatively new so we will remove and test to confirm they are working properly.

We will upgrade these eavestroughs to 6 inch and include a leaf guard.

6 inch eavestrough will help deal with the large roof area that drains into this valley. We choose 6 inch eavestrough for its capacity but mainly because it gives the T-Rex leaf guard more surface area to drain into the eavestrough. This can be helpful in problem valleys that have high volume plus lots of leaves.

A view from the ground. We will reconfigure the downspouts slightly to make this simpler and work perfectly.

With out a leaf guard you will have the potential for clogged downspouts like this one. We find clogs that have been in place for years and homeowners wonder why they are having overflows.

Heater cables are not really designed for a flat roof but this job required some due to unique circumstances. We will secure our new cables so they are more effective with out fastening through the roof.

Heater cables need to plug into a ground fault protected plug. This is code. Running extension cords is not recommended by the manufacturer and the Scarborough homeowner was made aware of the need for a plug here and not an extension cord. 



Incorrect - Power must come from GFI outlet not extension cord 

A proper GFI plug will have a reset button in between the two plug ins. This one does not. It's important to find out if this plug has been GFI protected at the panel as this is another way of making this plug up to code. If you are not sure you may want to contact your electrician. This is important because a heater cable without GFI will not turn off in the event of a short and could cause a fire.

Also make sure that this plug is dedicated with a 15 amp breaker if you are running a large heater cable. This is because large cables will use 1200 watts of power and anything else added to this rate of consumption will overload the circuit and trip the breaker.

We removed the roof sensor and tested it in a bowl of ice water. The wire has to be wet and cold before it will turn on. This sometimes takes a few minutes.

You can pick one of these up at Canadian Tire or Lowes and they work well in most situations. You can also buy the heater cables there as well. They are good bang for the buck as commercial cables are much more costly.

Once the Roof Sentry registered the cold and wet of the bowl, the light came on which means you will be getting power to your heater cable if it was plugged into this. It's a good idea to mount this box out of the elements and position it in a way so you can see the light. This will give you an idea of how often your cables are powered up. If you're trying to conserve energy you may want to run your cables manually as this sensor often stays on for longer than may be necessary.

After we removed all the old system we installed the new 6 inch gutter with a hidden bracket.



We then applied the leaf guard. This time we used the Gutter Clean version of the Alu-Rex products.

It's important to fold up the endcap and seal the leaf guard to it. This creates a good seal and a small dam which prevents water from spilling over the endcaps in a heavy rain.

You can see from up above that this is a large valley area funneling into a small eavestrough area.

The new heater cable was run almost all the way to the top of the valley for extra protection. 

Never fasten into a low slope or flat roof membrane in any way. A dab of caulk will hold the heater cable clip in place and not require any fastener.

It's important to make sure no wires are overlapping and are secured down to the leaf guard with cable clips. Over the years, we have determined that it is not essential to go under the leaf guard. The Roof Sentry ice sensor is the braided cable in the centre and extends up the valley a few feet. Make sure this sensor cable is in your ice problem area or the cables will not turn on at the right times or may not turn on at all.

A very unique situation here where the cable has to go down to the the lower flat roof and eavestrough. Always keep cables away from wood or anything combustible.

Heater cables must go under the leaf guard at the downspout. All downspouts must be traced all the way to the bottom as not to get a back up of water as the cables melt snow off the roof.

On a lower small flat roof, a rock is holding a heater cable clip until the caulking sets up.

Any vunerable nooks should be heated to be safe. Any areas that will hold a lot of snow will most likely get a lot of ice build up as the heat from inside the home comes up through the roof.

A blower is used to clean off all debris and leaves. Make sure, each fall, that all the leaves are cleaned away from the heater cables to reduce the risk of combustion.

All of the XL size 3.5 inch by 3.5 inch downpipes are traced with heater cables. A project like this used about 160 feet of cable and is quite a challenge to figure out exactly which length is reqiured. A good tip is to leave fudge room for the upper valleys where the cable can be adjusted more or less without creating a problem. Still best to do some math and calculate the best length before you start fastening any cable.

This North York home is now ready for the freeze and thaw of a Toronto winter.

Visit our website www.eavestrough.ca

Visit our YouTube channel http://www.youtube.com/torontoeavestrough