Gutter material is available in plastic (PVC, vinyl) and metals (aluminum, copper).  The plastic materials are easiest to work with, however, aluminum and copper will last longer.

K Style Trough	Half Round Style Trough
K Style Accessories	Half Round Style Accessories

For the home handyman, the installation of a rain gutter system is created by the connection of a group of  components that are designed to interconnect to one another.

It should be noted at this point that as a general statement each manufacturer, whether it is plastic or metal, will have similar components, however because of slight differences in contours, sizes and shapes pieces from one manufacture will not fit into the pieces of another manufacturer.  Hence, it is important that you purchase all of the components from the same manufacturer to avoid connection problems.

The primary piece of gutter is known as a section or trough.  These pieces are usually available in 10' lengths and if a longer length is required a joiner is used to connect the ends of two sections together.

Because of the multitude of possible roof designs it is impossible to give a standard configuration for the rain gutters and its components.  It is therefore important that you sketch out the roof and the location of the gutters.  Where there are multilevel roofs you can drain from the upper roof to the lower roof gutters or from the upper roof directly to the ground.

Sketching out the roof perimeter: