A Roofline That Spans Two Centuries
White Hall, the state historic site just outside Richmond, began as a seven-room Georgian brick house built in 1798-99 for Gen. Green Clay and was substantially enlarged in the 1860s by his son, the emancipationist Cassius Marcellus Clay, a single roofline that reflects two very different building eras.
What Storm Volume Means for an Old Roof
A roof that combines an 18th-century core with a 19th-century addition, like White Hall's, or any Richmond home built across a similarly long span, often has multiple roof pitches and valleys feeding into different points, which means a single gutter run rarely handles the whole roof evenly, and each section needs to be sized to the storm volume it actually receives during Kentucky's spring and fall downpours.
Project Paths
Mapping the Roof Before Sizing the System
Mapping out how a roof's various pitches and additions actually drain, rather than treating a multi-era roofline as a single simple rectangle, should come before choosing gutter and downspout sizing on a Richmond property.