How do you manage your rain gutters and downspouts?

I don't manage them - they seem to be doing their job without any input from me, and believe me - South Florida gets a lot of rain.

i will tell you that many people in Fl use rain barrels to collect their rainwater for the gardens as we do have periods of drought.

We used to have small gutters and a few years ago had all new seamless large gutters installed. They really do a good job. A couple years ago we put in a 35 gallon rain barrel at the end of one run of gutters. It provides a constant supply of water for my watering cans and plants that I hand water. It has never been completely empty, even during our dry season (winter).

I'm also in South Florida and while I do have regular downspouts for the water run off, which has been considerable this year, we have rain chains on some downspouts and rain barrels in our yard. We grow a lot of our own veggies so we can use the rain water from the barrell in the raised bed gardens we have. Fortunately, we don't have a lot of leaves so cleaning the gutters is not really much of a chore here.

Thanks, yes, I live by a forest of 100' trees (oak, maple, elm, tupelo, ash, etc). I should have clarified that. They are lovely and support astounding bird life but create the gutter problem (the birds would say we created the problem ourselves).

We have a seamless gutter system with screen guards in them that keep the debris out. DH checks them every once in a while to see if they need cleaned out. They don't need cleaned out like they did before he installed the screen guards. We have 3 rain barrels that collect some rain. They get full fast when it rains. We use the water to water the garden & all the plants. We have downspouts at other areas where we don't have the rain barrels that extends out so the water runs away from the house. Since our house sits up a little higher then the neighbors I imagine the water runs into their yards. Even with all the trees around here the gutters stay clean.

We once had gutter guards but never will again. They kept the leaves out, but anything small enough to fit through the openings got through and we still had clogged gutters. The guards were a pain to remove and replace when we needed to unclog. Also, wasps liked making nests under them, and we had lots.

Now we have 6" gutters, which we've been cleaning ourselves. Earlier this year, we got an iRobot Looj (made by the same company that makes the Roomba vacuum). It's this remote controlled contraption that rides through the gutter and whips out all the debris. Now I can clean the gutters myself without having to nag DH to climb an extension ladder, since part of the gutters is easily reached with a step ladder.

Our downspouts drain onto the ground.

Amazing! I looked at the iRobot and it appears to be quite an innovation.

I see now that I think part of our problem is that the gutters are too small. They are, however, tied into an extensive underground drain system that would have to be excavated (or abandoned) if we went up in size. Gets complicated when the drive slopes back towards the house and it needs to drain off to the side (or flood the garage), and that's part of the system.

For now, a painter friend (good on ladders) is coming over to advise/assist. We'll live with this thing for awhile. Thanks for the perspective. Ever wonder why you bought a house???

We have a rain barrel that we use to water the garden.