Leaking Cast Iron gutters

[Anonymous]

Bryan

I think it has been the "inflexibility" of the previous repairs which have caused them to fail but, like Evelyn, I did find evidence of putty being used to joint, in the past.

A quick look on the web, and found "Black Jack Trowel Mastic", which looks to be the product you were mentioning. Thanks for your help.

Ross

 

[Anonymous]

Evelyn

I too have found evidence of putty being used, but assumed that it was some special compund made just for this purpose and so didn't use the common or garden version.

Bryan suggests a semi-flexible mastic and that might do the trick. Thanks for your help.

Ross

 

[Anonymous]

Yes it was standard practice for plumbers, who once did all of the, guttering, leadwork and windows, etc., to fit guttering using linseed oil putty; mainly because they had it in their tool kits. But, in reality, putty was for fitting glass panes in windows, not for sealing cast iron joints in rainware (or gaps in the facia!).

I’ve done it in the past, there are lots of things I have done in the past, but now I am older and somewhat more knowledgeable, so in atonement I now try to put right the error of my ways.

Anyway, plumbers, being rather more genteel in manner than the normal builder types because they sometimes worked ‘indoors’, hated getting too mucky, and ‘Black Jack’ was mucky, so they preferred to use nice clean putty for everything. This dear Evelyn is wrong, I thought you recognised the need to let things ‘breathe and expand’. Those bolts on your guttering may have just eroded, but they are just as likely to have either cracked through being too rigid and exposed, or possibly a mixture of both unforgiving sealant and the stress caused by natural expansion and contraction – no room to ‘breathe’! A far more suitable a mastic would have sealed things off better and enabled everything to move freer and for longer.

As you point out, it is important to regularly maintain a building’s rainwater goods, but we are only human and therefore tend to miss the hidden bits – like kids not washing behind our ears.

Bryan

 

[Anonymous]

I rather suspect that after 130 years or so that any sort of jointing compound may fail - and I doubt that modern mastic sealants were available in those days, so putty was used.

I'm not totally convinced of the longevity of some of these modern compunds either.

In the long term, things need regular checking and repair.

Stave off repair with daily care etc.