Another product that may or may not interest you is Rainhandler. It's a gutter substitute. The rain coming off your roof hits these little louvers and the louvers redirect the rain out into your yard instead of letting it fall straight down and make a trench near your foundation. So the water can be used more efficiently than gutters and downspouts, which just encourage the water to run away before it has a chance to soak in because it's in a stream instead of dispersed.

I saw them demonstrated on some TV show like This Old House or something a few years ago.

Here is a link that might be useful: Rainhandler

Guess I'm following you around, laurabs! I just ran into Rainhandlers on another message forum and sent their website on to a friend in need of roof runoff control. Small world!

This product does look good.

I am thinking about replacing the gutters on our 100+ year old house with the Rainhandler diverters. Has anyone out there actually installed/used these? They sound great in theory, but I would like to hear from someone that has seen them work, or not.

There might be some applications for these. A few things that would send up red flags would be in areas that receive snow they'd be dropping water possibly on your walkways. Also depending upon your grade around your house they may not keep the water away from your foundation. In houses that have basements or where the water table is high going with traditional gutters and downspouts seems to make more sense.