The Lemon Fool

I've got a sectional concrete garage, which has old metal guttering fitted. I'd like to swap this for plastic guttering, using the original metal clips (as I'm not sure how easy it would be to reattach new clips.)
Is there a plastic equivalent of the old metal guttering? For some reason I think it's 4 1/2" guttering but have no idea why I think that.Would it be easy to add plastic guttering onto existing metal clips?

My guess is that it would not be easy to find exactly the right match in cross section of plastic vs metal.

John

I think you might struggle to get plastic to fit the old metal brackets but you could take one of the brackets to B & Q and try it on a piece of their guttering. Normal size gutter is 112mm, miniflow is 76mm (from memory).

If that doesn't work....

Would it be possible to fit a timber board to the garage below the roof and the just use plastic brackets screwed to it and plastic guttering.

The timber would only need to be 3/4" thick and you could stick it with outdoor 'no more nails' or similar if you can't get a fix any other way.

You would need to see how much the roof overhand is to check it would fit.

Outdoor no-nails : that's a good idea that I'd not thought of. I'll have a look this weekend and see if it's workable: thanks a lot!

I reckon it would fit. Those steel brackets might bend a bit if necessary. It would be much better if you could replace the brackets, however.

Cast iron just sits in the brackets, gravity holds it in. Plastic guttering clips into the brackets. Unless you find some way of holding the plastic in place, you may find that it vanishes next time there is a strong wind. You need to allow for the fact that plastic expands and contracts (that's why guttering keeps clicking some mornings when the temperature is rising) so don't use a rigid fixing method.


Julian F. G. W.

Is there a plastic equivalent of the old metal guttering?

Yes:
http://www.brettmartin.com/en-gb/plumbi ... -iron.aspx ,
http://www.screwfix.com/c/heating-plumb ... /cat831632
among others

Not sure they will be compatible with existing brackets though.

However experience has taught me that finding an exact match be it plastic or cast iron can be difficult due to the sheer variety of options available. Hopefully someone somewhere makes a guttering that can be used as a direct replaement or be modified to do so

BH

It is really difficult to fit plastic guttering into metal brackets (I've tried long ago). The brackets for plastic guttering have lips that fasten over the plastic to hold them - you would have to fashion something else to do this and the plastic, being lighter will distort and change shape with the weather.
Plastic brackets can be bought quite cheaply and you would be much better getting the two together so that they fit.