I got the impression that his main means of impressing the customer with his knowledge was to say that the gutters would need a 5 degree slope - he mentioned that at almost every meeting we had.
Said gutters discharged into two downpipes and an open T-junction over the glass conservatory roof - I had never liked the water running over the glass roof, that had been done because the original downpipe would have had to go through the roof. So I asked for them to replace it.
"Oooooh, missis! that means cutting into the drain. Ooooh no!" It was suggested (and I with doubts went along with it) that an extra pipe should be added at other side of the house pouring into a "soakaway" This proved to be an open-ended pipe that emptied onto a sloping gravel path a few inches from the house wall and foundations (there is a cellar and workshop under that part of the house, with the outer side of the workshop wall, below the DP course, then exposed to the wet earth under the outlet) A cloudburst a few days later washed away half the gravel path. I prevailed upon them to remove this pipe and add one where I had wanted it in the first place.
BUT! to direct the water in the other direction, the slope of the gutter had been changed. So it should have been changed back again. At the next cloudburst, I stuck my head out of a side landing window to see how the gutter was coping. There was a nice waterfall flowing over the brimming side of the guttering at the low point where the temporary downpipe had been. The end where the new pipe had been added was bone dry. The slope had not been changed back.
It was at that point that I mentioned gutter slopes and was asked whether I was an engineer. No, I replied, I just have a brain.
