What were some of the early gutter concepts?
Back in the early 1900s some of the larger houses in the area were built with an elaborate eave with a soffit, fascia, and wood molding on the outer edge. They had to custom form a steel or copper gutter in sheet metal to fit in the wood channel. Some problems with this was having separations every 10 feet that had to be soldered together. They would have to use solder, since they did not have the good silicone composite caulks like we have today. They would have to solder them together after they were up there on the house using an open flame torch, which was dangerous right there against the wood of the structure. They probably burned down a few houses doing this, like the huge fire they had in the West Hills recently from plumbers soldering water pipes together. The expansion and contraction due to temperature changes are different than the wood structure, so the seams would be ripped apart and leak. This expansion and contraction would also cause them to buckle and pull loose. Even
