Unfortunately I do need the gutters. They are really only on the front and
back of the house. The back of the house has a full length deck on the upper
level and two sliding doors on both levels. I wouldn't want the drainage
just pouring off the roof on that side. The house has a walkout basement
with the portion below the front of the house being fully below grade. I do
all i can to direct water away fron seeping inot the ground in that area.


JimR wrote:

No matter how you do it, if you have a lot of trees around, gutters are a
hassle. One step can be to rethink if and where you need gutters.
Especially if you have a wide overhang and don't have a basement, if your
ground slopes sufficientlly away from the house you can probably eliminate
gutters from most the roof line - it also helps if you have some foundation
plantings to further break up water coming off the roof. I initiallly had
gutters around the entire house, including a sidewall that ran about 100'.
I removed most of the gutters, only keeping a section over my two central
air conditioners, over the garage doors and at one point where there's a
valley which concentrates the runoff. Even though the gutters had been
screened, by removing them I saved about 3 workdays a year by not having to
worry about the unneeded gutters. I also saved a lot of effort when I
repaint the house.