Hi all, looking for advice from the forum. Around 12 weeks ago I had the soffits, fascias, and gutters replaced on our 1970s mid-terrace house. On the face of it this seemed like a fairly simple job and was completed within the day. However I have had persistent problems with the gutters leaking since the installation. This is mainly happening at the joins where the guttering connects to the neighbour's house; they have a square profile guttering, while the new one I have fitted is half-round. As such an adapter has had to be used to connect the two. However, I don't think this in itself is cause for issue - I previously had the same square profile guttering connecting to half-round on my neighbour on the other side, which did not leak. I have contacted the installers who - to their credit - have been back several times to try and address the problem. Their suggested remedy has been to seal the joins with silicone. While this has reduced the flow on the leaks, they haven't gone. And my instinct is that this is not a permanent solution. I was reassured that the flow on the gutters was fine on re-inspection. Keen to see the problem for myself I went up to have a look last week. I used a hose to run some water into the gutter and found that rather than flowing down to the downpipe (there is only one, at the opposite end of the terrace) the water instead pooled over the leaking join. This then dripped for several hours after I'd finished - the same thing happens when it rains. My questions here are: - is adding silicone just kicking the can down the road here? - the best recourse for taking this up with the installer to get this fixed.
The curious fact is that it is only "preferable" to have a fall in a gutter. I personally wouldn't think of not doing so but it can be flat. It should not have hollows though so as Roger says, get 'em back and get it done properly Gutter seal would be the right material, for sealing not normal sili.
I always install gutters on the horizontal. In the UK the rain is seldom a torrential downpour, so water will always find its way out the downpipe before it overflows. The odd bit of pooling is to be expected because it's pretty impossible to get something completely flat, but most pools evaporate off pretty quickly. In the OP's case, the pooling just happens to be at the one and only poor seal ... hence my suggestion to raise it there so that it simply doesn't pool there, but flows away from the leak.