A city that tripled in ten years
The 1910 census found 69,067 people in Akron. The 1920 census found 208,435. Nearly all of that growth came from one industry, and the people it drew needed somewhere to sleep.
Private builders could not keep pace, so the rubber companies went into the housing business themselves. They did not just put up barracks. They hired landscape architects, bought land at the edge of town and planned complete neighborhoods.
Who built what
Goodyear Heights came first. Frank Seiberling had Warren Manning lay it out in 1912 and 1913 in East Akron. The company built most of the early houses, and workers built others from plans the company approved. They were five-room and six-room houses in brick or stucco, and they sold at the time for $2,400 to $4,450. Goodyear helped buyers with a two-mortgage plan designed to keep them on the payroll.
Firestone Park followed in 1915 on about 1,000 acres in South Akron. Harvey Firestone's planner, Alling DeForest, arranged it around a park in the shape of the company shield. Some 600 houses were completed in a single year.
Kenmore was not a company project. It was a separate city that grew fast between 1910 and 1920 as rubber workers and salt miners moved in, and it joined Akron after a vote in 1928. Its houses are of the same age and much the same scale.
What makes a cottage roof different
Seiberling wanted his workers in traditional-looking cottages, and the scale of those houses shapes everything about their gutters.
- Short runs. A small footprint means a gutter across the front, one across the back, and not much else.
- Few downspouts. A short run is often served by a single outlet. Block it and the whole run overflows.
- Dormers and porches. Many cottages gain headroom upstairs with a dormer and shelter the door with a porch roof. Each adds a short gutter with its own ends and corners.
- Later additions. Over a hundred years, back porches get enclosed and kitchens get extended. The new roof is often low-sloped and drains into whatever gutter was nearest.
None of this is a fault. It simply means a cottage has no slack in its drainage. A larger house can lose one downspout and limp along on the others. A cottage cannot.
A hundred years on one board
Behind every gutter is the fascia, the board fixed across the rafter ends. On a house from 1915 it may be the original. It has been painted many times and it has carried several sets of gutters.
Old fascia fails in predictable places. Look at the ends of a run, where water spills when an outlet is blocked. Look under roof valleys. Look behind the brackets that hold a downspout to the wall. Paint that bubbles or wood that gives under a thumbnail means moisture has been getting in.
The fasteners age too. Earlier gutters were usually held by spikes driven through the front edge, and a century of freezing and thawing loosens them. A run that dips in the middle is hanging on spikes that have lost their grip.
Guards make these checks more important, not less, because the Leaf Solution guard is screwed to that same board. The page on gutter guards for older Akron homes describes how the owner of Guttrz tests the wood and what happens when a section turns out to be soft.
How guards go on a cottage
The work is the same as on any house, just compressed.
- The gutters are emptied by hand and the downspouts flushed. On a house with one outlet per run, the flush is the most important ten minutes of the day.
- Loose spikes are backed up with hidden hangers that screw into the rafter tails, so the gutter sits straight.
- The mesh panels are fastened to the fascia and the gutter lip. The roofing itself is not touched.
- Every corner is cut as a miter, and each run is closed with end caps. Short dormer gutters get both.
- A hose is run along each side to check that water drops through the mesh and out at the bottom.
Because there are fewer feet to cover, a cottage is one of the quicker installs. Most of its gutter is low enough for the lower of the two per-foot rates. The neighborhood guides for Goodyear Heights and Firestone Park go into the local details.
When to hold off
Guards are the wrong first step on some of these houses, and an honest inspection will say so.
If the gutters are old steel and have rusted through, mesh will not save them. If the fascia is soft along a whole side, it needs carpentry before it needs a guard. And if no tree stands near the house, the gutters will hardly fill, and an occasional cleaning is cheaper.
The short version
A worker cottage has little gutter, few outlets and old wood. That combination makes a clog more costly and a careful inspection more valuable. With the board checked and the hangers sound, micro-mesh suits these houses well. Start with the guide to guards on older homes, or read how an installation goes from start to finish.