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
