When the owners of a dignified Italian-
style residence got a bid of
$30,000 to replace a deteriorating
porch deck, they thought twice about
doing the repairs. They had already
made extensive repairs to the decayed
and buckling deck boards each year
for the past several years. They called
on me to help them determine if complete
replacement at such a high cost
would actually solve the problem.
When I looked the situation over, I
found the problems with the deck
were only a symptom of amore serious
drainage problem. It turns out that 20
or 30 years ago the built-in gutters of
the main house and porch roof had
been covered over during reroofing.
Without gutters, all