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This perplexes me. How are the foundations protected from all of the water? Clearly these houses have lasted over a hundred of years without gutters and downspouts, but there are many with foundations that haven't survived. There's a point of taking "period" a bit too far when certain upgrades would preserve a house longer. I'm just curious.
Another thought. There are a lot of houses that look like they should be condemned but people live in them. I'm talking the entire house is slanting sideways or the middle of the house is bowing outward. Aren't there building codes? Is it a live at your own risk type state?
I think proper grading around a house to get water to run away from the house is more important than gutters. I'm not sure if those old stone foundations were just stronger than modern concrete but I've yet to see one destroyed by water the way I've seen concrete ruined. One house I lived in for a time had terrible grading that brought water right into the cellar every time it rained. It seems when they wanted a modern lawn instead of the old muddy farmyard they added tons of fill to where the lawn was higher than the top of the foundation. That had been going on at least 50 years and the stone foundation was fine. I think unstable soil issues might be the source of some foundation problems.
Those bowed out walls and sagging roofs might have been stabilized already but even once repaired to make them stable you can't always get the sag or bow out without destroying the structure.
There are building codes here, but they don't apply to existing structures unless they're being rented out instead of owner occupied is how I understand it.
When my wife and I built out log cabin 5 years ago we did not install gutters. we graded things properly and have 3-4' of crushed stone around our foundation that goes out about 20-24" from our foundation all around.....so no plant life up against our foundation. we drain very well without gutters. While properly installed gutters can really help in some situations, I do see plenty of horrible planning with gutters and all they do is focus water into a small area and people end up with big problems.
As for codes, when we built in the NEK, we had no inspections except for the septic engineer and setbacks. Once we were done our inspection for a COO was 2 mins of me showing them the toilet flushed and we had water followed by 45 mins of talk about deer hunting. No inspections whatsoever required for building codes etc.
Everything was built to national code but there was nothing like the intrusive crap I dealt with in southern MA....I had a cease and desist slapped on me for replacing my fence, one for installing new siding myself and one for installing new shutters. Needless to say, I don't like the red tape....
I know with our metal roof at our condo, huge chunks of snow coming flying off and gutters would get ripped right off. I do see a lot of crushed stone, maybe 3 foot off the outside wall of a lot of buildings.
Gutters can cause more damage than they prevent. If the snow builds up in a gutter, that snow can hold back snow that is on the roof. If the attic gets warm, then an ice dam forms. With an ice dam, water can back up under the roofing and rot away at the birds mouths of the rafters, drip down interior walls, and so on. On a two story home with a steep roof, cleaning leaves and debris out of gutters can be tedious and dangerous.
If the foundation is fieldstone, and the sill plate is a foot or more off the ground, then very little will happen to damage the foundation. Besides, the woods used in older houses are not the lightweight pine and spruce of modern construction. Many of the denser woods are much more resistant to rot. FWIW, the Bolton dam has cribbing made of hemlock that has lasted for more than 100 years.
Building codes are quite recent requirements, especially in rural areas. A friend of mine lived in a house where much of the framing was salvaged crossarms from telephone poles and roughsawn wood. I had to help him redesign his roof, as it was 2 x 4s 24" +- OC. A part of it fell in under snowload one year.
Thank goodness there are still parts of the country where building codes are NOT strictly enforced and insurance companies don't dictate every structure have a true hip roof.
In short, not all areas of the country should live under an over-reaching "thou shalt not" power that demands money in addition to restricting freedoms.
I agree with you on that Harry, about building codes. About the only thing I'll need to worry about if I buy some land in my favorite parts of the NEK would be the state septic regulations, and there's ways around that too. I know I can build something that will outlast the typical suburban mcmansion, but it won't necessarily meet code in every way (I could just see the typical city-minded building inspector having a heart attack if I install my antique gas lighting fixtures or my 1839 Tyson Furnace woodstove. Codes have a tendency to restrict any creative or unusual method of construction no matter how strong or safe it is.
There's a house on public land a few towns away that's 150 years old and sits only on some stone blocks about every ten feet or so. No true foundation. It's still standing strong despite serious neglect for 60 years (no gutters either).
As mentioned, if the grading and drainage is properly done (and it seems it often isn't) then I don't think gutters are always needed. And in snow heavy territory there are definitely drawbacks to having gutters that others have mentioned. My house doesn't have them and I've never had any water in the basement.
As for sagging run down houses? Well, take a look at the between rock and a hard place report and its income to housing cost disparity in the state and its easy enough to answer that question. A large amount of Vermonters cannot really afford the houses they live in, and maintenance is one of the first things you end up deferring if you don't have any cash lying around. And since this is often not even a temporary monetary deficiency that maintenance is deferred indefinitely.
This perplexes me. How are the foundations protected from all of the water? Clearly these houses have lasted over a hundred of years without gutters and downspouts, but there are many with foundations that haven't survived. There's a point of taking "period" a bit too far when certain upgrades would preserve a house longer. I'm just curious.
Another thought. There are a lot of houses that look like they should be condemned but people live in them. I'm talking the entire house is slanting sideways or the middle of the house is bowing outward. Aren't there building codes? Is it a live at your own risk type state?
Building codes are quite lax. We built our home 10 years ago and we didn't need an inspection or certificate of occupancy to move in. We actually moved in when it wasn't quite finished b/c we couldn't continue to pay a construction loan and rent at the same time.
The state was definitely more concerned with the septic system design than the house itself and we had to supply detailed design plans including an alternative leach field location.
Our house was built in 1810 by a covered bridge builder, David Boyce, and still has the original fieldstone foundation and no gutters. The property is on a slope, and generally the water runs away from the house. During very heavy rain, some water finds its way in, but that drains through the floor fairly quickly and the basement never floods. A previous owner put a concrete gutter on the ground on the side of the house that leaked the most and that works well except during intense downpours. Normal gutters aren't suited to snowy regions unless they can stand up to heavy snow and the roof doesn't form ice dams. Where the water falls from the roof it has created a small channel on the ground that slopes downhill.
As far as codes go, a lot of things in the house look as if no one ever heard of them. The quality of workmanship varies wildly. Tom Silva from This Old House would have a field day here. But with basic maintenance, it looks as if the house could last forever.
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One word why no gutters
