Advice on rebuilding built-in gutters

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Author Message   Scott Morgan Posted on Tuesday, May 18, 2004 - 05:04 pm:        Hi, I'm looking for some general advice on rebuilding my 124 yr old box gutters. Originally they were tin, I'm probably going to replace it with 16 oz copper (comes in 8'x3' for 63$ or 10'x3' for 92$), but if there is better and cheaper way, I'd love to know about it. Couple of questions come to mind... 1)Expansion/contraction - Should I run the copper as a full 8' piece, or cut it into smaller pieces (3-4 pcs at 2'x3') and rivet and solder them together? 2)How far up under the shingles (40 yr GAF fake shakes) should I go w/the copper or can I use ice/water dam to save on some of that? 3)Can I bend arbitary lengths (2'-8') of 16oz copper on a standard sheet metal brake, and how should I form the half round part of the gutter? Use 4" PVC or something? 4)Any problem w/using standard aluminum drops instead of copper? Thanks in advance for any and all help and info! Scott Morgan   admin Posted on Thursday, May 20, 2004 - 10:41 am:        Use 20 ounce copper. Use the full 8' piece if you have an 8' brake. Don't know about the asphalt shingles. Built in gutters don't have half round parts. You can bend the copper on a standard brake. You can't mix aluminum with copper. Use copper drops - you can easily make them yourself.   Scott Morgan Posted on Thursday, May 20, 2004 - 01:51 pm:        Thanks for the info, I'll check into the 20 oz copper. I have found 24"x10' 16oz rolls for $40, hopefully cost isn't too much higher. These apparently aren't the standard box-type or yankee gutters, there's only a shallow arc cut out of the rafter tails to make room for the round bottom of the existing tin gutter. I'm guessing that they were made with the half round because less forming was involved. I have an existing aluminum gutter system on a wrap around porch (1st floor) currently, that's why I was hoping to have the upper drops be aluminum as well. Is there an inert material (relative to both copper and aluminum) that I could use to transition from one to the other?   admin Posted on Friday, May 21, 2004 - 09:53 pm:        I dont know of an inert material other than maybe stainless steel.   admin Posted on Friday, May 21, 2004 - 09:55 pm:        PS: You need expansion joints every 30'