Rain gutters save the day!

We had our rain gutters installed yesterday (horary for tax returns to finance them)! I feel so old and responsible when I get excited for something like rain gutters, but I really am ecstatic. Several problems were occurring because of our lack of gutters that this magically cured. First, when the rain falls off the roof it has been digging a trench in our flower beds on both sides of the house. This means I haven’t been able to plant our bulbs that we purchased yet, because every time it rained a trench would mess everything up. Second, at the far right side of the car port the run off rain was flowing down our only section of wooden fence causing it to grow mold. Gross, and not very good for the fence. I’m sure eventually we’ll have to take this wood out and replace it, but why not wait until later if possible? I called three places to come out and give us bids, Dave walked through the bid process with the contractors and selected one.My Grandparents just had their rain gutters installed in Hurricane, so we asked them around what price they had paid to get a feel for what we were getting ourselves into (their house is larger, so we were hoping to pay less than the $1,000 they paid for theirs). I was surprised with the different approach to this process. The first bidder gave us the best price ($530 for the whole house and car port), but he failed to plan for the electrical wires coming out of the back of the house, thus the need for a spout off each side of the back of the house. I mentioned this need when I called in, so he clearly should have been aware of it, even if he happened to not see the monstrosity of electric wiring. His lack of judgment kicked him out of the war for our money The second man’s bid was about $100 more than the first, but he not only mentioned the need for two rain gutters on the back, but also pointed out a need on the car port that we didn’t recognize ourselves. The final bid was $200 more than the second man, seemed equally competent, but couldn’t install for two weeks. Needless to say we chose man #2. What interests me the most, is that the economy is doing bad right now, each company has acknowledged that not only is this a slow time of year for them, but they’re doing especially bad for the season. You would think we would get competitive bids, and that they would be chomping at the bid to give the best assessment and do the best job possible! Oh well, we got our gutters and that’s what matters