Wow, wassup with my 'rain gutters'?

[Beachboy]

while caulking my siding of house my 8 yr old calls me over and tells me while playing "fetch" with our dog he accidentally tossed ball up into rain gutter. No problem I figure as I have 'step ladder' out already for caulking siding of house Upon standing on ladder and looking into 'rain gutter', I couldn't believe what my eyes saw!
Mosquito Larvae by the thousands if not millions were wiggling around in gutter!
Keep in mind, I've only been at this house several weeks, and rain gutter has been up less than one month too. I can only imagine what rain gutters look like in older homes?!?!

Now, is this something I should worry about, or deal with right away. Is there anything that can be done to treat 'rain gutters'? Or should I just let my filters and UV light do the work?

When should someone start to treat catchment tank with bleach or whatever

[jdirgo]

Something is preventing your gutters from draining properly. You should never have standing water in the gutters for mosquitoes to breed in.

John Dirgo, R, ABR, e-PRO
Island Trust Properties, LLC
808-987-9243 cell
http://www.hawaiirealproperty.com

[ericlp]

Haha, that's pretty funny john....

Hmmm, I wonder about that big 10K gallon tank everyone has in their yards. I know a lot of people never treat catchment tank water, so that is a huge mosquito breeding ground.

Beachboy, there is only one way to solve that problem. One is make sure that your gutters are high on the trim boards and low where the gutters drain into the down spouts. Treating the gutters isn't going to help unless you want to pour bleach in your gutters every time it rains?

Personally, most people have a small amount of water in their gutters it's almost unavoidable to completely remove (drain) all the water out especially if the runs are long. Tho, if you have A LOT of water like half full of water where it's collecting in the middle of the gutter then that is a problem... Tho, if you only have a quarter/half inch of water then it's acceptable.

Measure your fascia board. The standard is 5/6" boards. You can buy them in larger sizes like 8"... What this give you is a bigger drop for gutter hanging... I'm no gutter expert but the bigger the drop of a long run the less water is going to accumulate.

[ef9]

Pressure wash the gutters and check to see why the water is sitting in your gutters when it is not raining.

Check for debris in the downspouts.

[Beachboy]

well today turned to be a real maintance kinda day. The wife stayed home from work, allowing to me to work around the house. Right before sunset I broke out the "step ladder" and decided to clean out the rain gutters by hand. I systematically went from one downspout to the next and freed them all up of debris that had fallen from surrounding Albeiza Trees. Now I realized why I had this small amount of water sitting in my rain gutter!

[Beachboy]

Tuesday morning. I also noticed a hairline crack in the line running on ground to catchment tank. It is only about an inch in length. I wonder if get 'Duct Tape', and wrap it with that if it will hold for awhile? I'm really not in the mood today to cut out a section of this 3 inch pipe running to the tank. I'm hoping this "McGyver" duct tape job will do the trick?

[Carey]

Beachboy, Duck tape will work, but may also leave a sticky residue that will need removal when you repair. This may not be a very major repair, as you may be able to fix it with a 3" union & a dab of pvc cement - depends on the flex of your run & the size of the crack....(HD also has had emergency pipe repair - looks like a split pipe with seals & straps to hold it together...not sure if they had 3"..)

[HADave]

Home Depot "GOOP" for plumbing, a little dab il do yah