Day 205
Having just paid money to improve grading around the barn so that water would stay outside, we were disheartened to see rain pile up again on account of leaky gutters. Not wanting our grading to be washed away because of craptacular gutters, we tried to fix them. Hoping to save money, we went with a cheaper option of using a tape and paste product made popular through the power of infomercials. It would certainly help solve our problem, at least temporarily.
Wrong.
Once applied, it took one rainstorm to have the problem persist. Not wanting to go through this cycle again and again,we decided to at least get gutter replacement quotes from companies. Similar to our solar quotes, we got three quotes. Two were from larger companies with recognizable advertising. The other was a smaller local company that appeared on basic online search. The two larger companies had very professional presentations with some slick salesmanship. Whether it be powerpoint presentations, digitally created diagrams of what our new gutters would look like, or cold calls to previous customers to get money off of quotes, they had the sales technique down to a science. They also had much, much higher quotes. Their gutters boasted the newest technologies and best tricks of the trade. While I learned a bit about the latest and greatest in gutters, it felt like overkill to me. We wanted gutters that didn’t leak. Plain and simple.
The smaller company measured the gutters, told us the price per foot, and multiplied. No frills. And a much cheaper quote.
Still, we decided to wait and save our money for now. The dry spring and summer made holding off a decent decision, but we knew that with that price difference, we should probably take the much better quote while we could. Not knowing what the future held for the cost of materials and the company's availability.
Within a few days of accepting the quote, we had new gutters on the barn. The company even attached the downspouts to the three rain barrels we now had. This would make getting water to the chickens much easier.
No worries about the garden. It didn’t need our help.
