[Calvincrowe]

Arrived home this afternoon to find three of the 2x8s (12 feet each) on our barn overhang on which 36 feet of 48 feet of single piece rolled metal gutter (sniff, sniff....that's nearly $400 worth right there!) had ripped away and were hanging in the paddock with horses!! We got the horses in their stalls, luckily they were not hurt, and tried to come up with a game plan to fix things, temporarily.

We got the boards back up (they aren't rotten), and the gutter isn't damaged much, but it's pretty redneck, complete with 3 areas tied on to the barn with baling twine...just as a reinforcement.

So...ideas on how to go about really fixing this mess. Right now, the wind is blowing hard, with 60mph gusts, and freezing rain is coming tomorrow, so we're talking down the road a bit.

I'm thinking we'll need to get several people out to help us remove the gutter in one piece, then instead of nails, we'll use screws or bolts to attach the 2x8s back on the barn and reattach the gutter. But...how do you get the gutter off in one piece? Ahhh! It sucks with just the two of us living here, and no good "barn crew" to call on.

[Bluey]

How high are you working there?
Do you have a tractor with a bucket, ladders that reach safely up there?

Would it be easier to just try to repair it right there, not take it down first?

We also had some old gutter hung in there with very long galvanized nails come down in a snow in the horse shed long ago, but it was in 16' sections, so it was easy to take apart and rehung.
Could you cut the metal gutter in easier to handle lengths?
Those old long straight nails were useless, don't know how they lasted so long, we did use lag screws to get that back up there.

Good luck.

[hosspuller]

Yes x 1000 for screws, Use deck screws to keep the heads from rusting. As for the gutter. Tie the sections up as you remove the fasteners. Don't let it twist as you handle it or the gutter will flop & collapse like a wet noodle. I have a twisted and collapsed section ...

[alabama]

I've pretty much come to the conclusion that if you want something to hold, you really do have to use screws. I was feeding a few weeks ago and started hearing the weirdest noises. Horses were all freaked out. Turns out the roof was trying to blow off part of my barn. Roof was attached with nails. Luckily, it was on the low side and I could reach up and stack concrete blocks on it to hold it down until my SO could come out and screw it down.

[Tom King]

Home Depot has a good assortment of large screws where the nails and decking screws are. Use these:http://www.spax.us/images/pdfs/SPAX_Powerlag_Flyer.pdf
the T-star washer head 5" long

of these in each rafter tail, and one or two 3 1/2" star drive decking screws will not let it ever fall again. An 18v impact driver runs them right in.

Only use "star drive". Forget phillips and square drive.

You need a T30 TORX bit for the big screws, and T25 for the 3 1/2 inchers. They're called "star drive", but it's really a TORX. Home Depot should also have the snap in T30 and T25 bits where the drill bits and other driver bits are. If they don't have them there, some short ones are where the screws are. The longer snap-in ones work best at staying in an impact driver.

If you don't have an 18 volt impact driver, HD also has those on sale now. I was just in HD today. Get the $199 white and black 18v Makita combo that has the driver and drill. I have that set which is probably 4 or 5 years old and it still works fine. The more expensive set with the larger batteries is a bit stronger. I have those too, but if you don't use them for a living like we do, the white and black compact ones work fine. I consider them a necessity on a farm.

As good as sealants are these days, I don't pay the extra expense for continuous gutters, and haven't in many years. You can buy them in shorter sections in the big box stores, and use urethane caulking. Just set 4 inches of the uphill one into the one below. Sorry, but I haven't really found a gutter screw I like yet to recommend.

Take time to set up something that is stable and safe to stand on, to work off of. Don't try to do it off ladders. I'd use aluminum scaffolding planks set about 4 feet below the rafter tails. http://www.acmetools.com/webapp/wcs/...FQf0nAodkwUAjQ

[Calvincrowe]

Thanks for the replies! We didn't build the overhang, but the builder used nails to put the boards in. The gutter company installed onsite rolled gutters (over 200 feet of it on the whole barn) 3 years ago--I love them! There is no way Mr. CC and I were installing them on our ginormous and very tall metal pole barn (we bought the farm with it already there, and it had not gutters--ugh!).

Anyway, our biggest issue is removing the gutter in one piece and reattaching the damn 2x8x12 "fascia" boards that were already there. Tom King--we used screws last night to jury-rig it back up temporarily and I just happened to get Mr. CC a new driver for Xmas! We used the longest we had available in the shop. I'm already lining up help to bring ladders or better yet, scaffolding to work from. With enough people and the right tools it should be a quick job, actually. I just need to keep it up until it warms up and the wind stops blowing.