I have a super strong-walled concrete constructed home from 1948. However the roof framing seems rather margianal as it uses only a 1x8 ridge board with 2x4 rafters. It is a simple ranch design. I was hoping to use at least a light weight tile as I am in Californai desert but feel I may be stuck with shingle. Question; what is the rule of thumb or some sort of a table or caculator to determine adequacy for a given roofing materal? I want to have some sense to know for myself and to keep contractors honest etc. I know in some places they make you pay for a engineer to evaluate this. thanks

I have a Cape Cod style house with a large gable in the center. On one side of the roof, both roofs of the gabel and the house come together in a crevice (it's lined in metal...sorry, don't know what that's called). At any rate, I've just recently had the entire house tuck pointed and want to shore up the gutters before the winter. In this particular corner, all the rain water (and eventually the snow runoff) falls into a very short, cornered section of gutter. What I mean by that is at the gutter line where this crevice ends, there's a 3-inch section of gutter that spans both sides of the house's corner for at most about 18 inches, at the end of the left one is a downspout. From what I can tell, originally there was a downspout on the righthand side gutter. And prior to us purchasing the property, the gutters hadn't been cleaned out in probably about 3 years (older lady in a nursing home). There were saplings growing in some of the gutters. I've since cleaned the gutters (several times in the 10 months we've been here...lots of trees overhea). So, I'd like to do the following and would appreciate any help anyone can offer: a) realign the gutters, shoring up for better support and caulking all seams. b) install 5-inch gutters in areas where particularly high runoff is possible. c) relocate the downspout to it's original righthand side (looks better from the curb and it's easier there to include a downspout extension at ground level to distribute the water even further from the house). d) install gutter screens to keep the leafs out. My questions include: Realigning the gutters shouldn't be much of a problem, but any pointers? Will installing a 5-inch gutter really make much of a difference? in heavy rains, especially if the gutter isn't clean, the water will over shoot the gutter and end up running down the brick (which resulted in some very worn mortar joints in that area and subsequently some minor water damange on the interior). Can I reuse my existing downspouts from one side to the other, whether I go with new 5-inch gutters or just reuse the existing gutters? And finally, do gutter screens work? Will they keep the leaves out!? Thank you.