I am working on this building as a own a flat in the block of seven. I sort out any repairs that need doing for the block.

We have cast iron boxed guttering which leaks at the joints. So this needs attention. We also have a fair bit of rotted wood on the fascia and mouldings. I have only been close to the guttering in one place, which is at the side of the building where we have a fire escape. So i have seen bits of it, but cant assess the whole thing.

Next year we are going to scaffold the front and sides (maybe the back if we have enough money) and will be tacking this job.

I am unsure what is the best course of direction to go in. We want to improve the leaks obviously, but also need to think about future maintenance / painting.

I just wondered if anyone here has done something similar and how they tackled the job. I have a few options:

1) Repair the cast and create new seals at the joints. Remove them to sand and repaint and also sand and repaint the wood fascias plus sort out any rot.

2) Replace the cast with aluminium and treat the wood fascia in the same way.

3) Go all PVC and use the cladding option on the wood and then use pvc guttering. I have seen pics of a guy who has done this on his older building and it looks good. The pvc also means no painting in another 10 years time.

I have a feeling I will be the one who ends up doing this work as the quotes to do it will be very high. Our scaffold quote is £1200 and that is for the front and half the side. Next year we will have more money in the kitty so we have decided to tackle it then and we can then scaffold the rear plus the other 50% of the side. By doing it myself I will be quite a bit less than a company doing it.

I'd go with cast aluminium, powder coated

Copper for me

I have successfully overhauled CI guttering. You need all new nuts and bolts, new big head screws to fix it to the fascias with. Sometimes the backs have rusted through.

Ok thanks for ideas.

will look into the lindab and the aluminimum options.

Copper must be quite expensive I bet.

Our bungalow has mainly two long runs of guttering. At present they are PVC and about ten years old

PVC seems like a good idea, but my experience is that the expansion and contraction over time leads to the joints pulling apart and leaking. Not too bad on a bungalow, but a pain if it involves ladders! The rubber seals in the joints also compress over time and leak. The PVC downpipes don't cause too much trouble and are a cheap answer.

I like the idea of rolled Aluminium gutters - no joints except corners. Unfortunately the products I have found in this country are quite thin gauge and need frequent bracing along the length. This would interfere with my latest idea to use an extension tube with a u-shape at one end in addition to my garage vac to suck any debris out of the gutter whilst strolling along below. I could fiddle it around the braces and may end up using the thinner version.

There is another rolled Al version, much thicker, which is self-supporting along its length, but I cannot find a supplier so far.

For shorter runs the cast Aluminium looks nice and won't have too many joints, but long runs would show the benefits of no joints using rolled Aluminium

Doing what you suggest is such a massive job, plus this is 12m in the air. We will have scaffolding. I am having some quotes and discuss options.

I have cast iron gutter and I am in a conservation area so I am required to replace like for like. Faced with the cost of new cast iron gutter and the likely problems in trying to remove (it appeared to be bedded in mortar along the cope) and replace I went for repairs.

I have tried a few different methods, none of which I removed the gutter for.

In one long straight section when there was full scaffold in place at the time I completely cleaned the inside of the gutter, primed and 'lined' the full length with a single length of flashband, then painted over with a couple of coats of bitumen paint. This has lasted 4 years so far and has worked well.

On the sections with bends, getting the flashband to go around the corners wasn't so good, so a few years ago I tried the traditional method of using putty, forcing it into the joint then painting over with bitumen. This cracked within a year and started to leak. Also tried CT1 in the joint as I was told this worked well for cast gutters, but didn't work for me.

Another method I tried on the shorter sections with bends is to force bitumen mastic into the joints, tape over the joints with flashband and paint. The main thing with the flashband is to ensure the edged are well sealed with bitumen or it will just lift when water gets under it. On one or two of the joints I have just used bitumen mastic and painted over with bitumen paint and this is working well so far, but has only been a year.

A bit unconventional but this has worked for me.

One of the problems with this type of gutter is that the overlapping joints mean that they never completely drain, and water often sits up against the joint most of the year, and the joints tend to move, so I think there will always be regular maintenance needed.

Posted By: marsadayWe are going for bog standard deep flow pvc guttering.

Presume you will be fitting black goods. They get very hot in the sun and creak like mad, if you can, go with white. Pay attention to expansion gaps at joints for white it is 1mm per M length think black is more but check. Be more generous with support brackets than recommended. For downpipes use round in past have found the rectangular ones are more prone to get debris blockage at bends and outlets.

Posted By: revorresume you will be fitting black goods. They get very hot in the sun and creak like mad, if you can, go with white.

Colour bleaching is also a problem with PVC guttering, especially with dark colours.