In eb.com,
Walter typed:
On 10/28/2016 6:45 AM, Frank wrote:
Several Halloweens ago wife asked 81 year neighbor about missing
teeth and he said he had fallen off the roof. I'm not a lot younger
than that. My roof climbing days are over. Better a mess coming
down on me than me coming down a mess.

Best thing I ever did was have my eve troughs removed. Between the
fall leaves and the winter snow/ice, they were a maintenance
headache.

I did the same thing on two homes that I own. The first one was a one-story
ranch style home. There were some problems and damage to the existing
gutters and downspouts, so before replacing them I decided to just remove
them all and see what happens.

A neighbor said that if I did that I would end up with deep ruts in the
ground along the line where the rain water drops off the roof. He was
somewhat right, but not completely. Along the back of that house, there are
some narrow ruts or pits in the ground but nothing significant. Along the
front of the house, not so much, but the grass grows better in the front
than the back which reduced the amount of "rut effect". And, over the back
door there is the problem of having to walk through a waterfall while going
in and out if it is raining. I may be able to create some type of fix for
that issue by putting up some kind of diverter piece on the roof to divert
the water away from the section over the door, but I haven't bothered to try
that yet.

The second home that I did this on is a 2 1/2 story older style home. That
one has a huge oak tree in front that belongs to the County so I cannot
remove the tree. The tree produces tons of leaves and acorns and always
created a huge mess with the gutters and downspouts. Interestingly, for
that house, the issue of the "ruts" is almost nonexistent. I think that may
be because even though some of the waterfall drops from two floors up, the
amount off roof area receiving rain on each of the 4 sides is less so less
rain water pours down on each side.

To replace them, I had a shallow trench ( 12" deep x 6' wide ) dug
the along the length of the house (front and back). Next the
trenches were lined with rubber pond liner and filled with pea
gravel. Both trenches drain off to a dry well about 75' from house.

Maybe something like that would be a "fix" of some sort for the rut issue
that my no-gutter, no-downspout, solution created.

But, the bottom line for me is that for these two homes -- which are
subjected to tree leaves and acorns etc. -- my no-gutter, no-downspout,
solution seems to work well.

And, for homes where I have no tree issues near those homes, leaving the
gutters and downspouts in place is no problem and works well.