which guttering?

I think having read the post about frozen gutters/water coming into house that this is the same problem that I am having - and I thought it was just me dancing around with towels and cloths with niagara coming through our bay window frame! This has happened to us twice in the fourteen years at our house. Last time was a year or so ago and we thought it was due to a couple of broken tiles on the roof above the bay, it obviously wasn't as the tiles have been replaced and it has just happened again.

We had someone round to have a look the other day but he couldn't really do anything as it was snowing heavily and you can not actually see the roof for snow. His first reaction was that our gutters (mine and the attached neighbours) are set very low and I have to say that all other houses in the street have guttering set snugly under the edge of the tiles/slates. From the ground ours seems to be two or three inches below the egde of the roof. My neighbour has cast iron guttering and ours was replaced in plastic before we bought the house. It does look a bit untidy as the plastic is not the same size as the cast iron and the join in the two has always been a bit drippy. Anyway, the upshot of this is that the chap is coming back when the snow clears a bit to have a proper look at the roof in case there is a problem and we are considering having the gutter replaced. I was wondering if anyone has the time to post some info on different types of gutter available so that I am not completely clueless when he comes back. We live in an Edwardian house and I have no idea what alternatives there available. Presumeably cast iron the same as my neighbour would be very expensive.

Antway, thanks for looking and I look forward to a reponse from anyone who has the time.

Hiya m8

I would personally say that Cast Iron is better than plastic, its much stronger.. Not all that expensive, depends on the size of the house.. Length of Cast Iron Gutter roughly about £28.00 climbing upto about £59 for longer lengths

Plastic gutters, they can fade in colour over the years, the clips are easy to snap and if there is alot of snow etc on them they can bugger up

You can get mock cast iron guttering in PVC. Try here.
http://www.angelplastics.co.uk/Products_Sub.asp?PP=140&PCT=0&U=5&N=guttering.gif

A friend has used it on a barn conversion and liked it, especially the cost, viz a viz cast iron. Building Inspector/Planning took some convincing.
It was only a few years ago though so no long-term feedback. I don't know how it would mate up to the genuine article.