Gutters or no gutters?

This house has no gutters, as old houses don't. The rooftiles on the side are extra long, so the water is simply dropping off at the sides of the house. That has a very bad side effect: the water splashes on the ground, and back up, wetting the walls at the base. You can try countering it by putting nice tiles on the walls, but water will still splash on windows and doors, and thus enter houses. That is why you'll see boards and plastic in front of many doors here when it rains.

We thought about gutters, too. You can buy them made of plastic, galvanized iron, aluminium, copper, ... Being an aluminium fan I asked two suppliers for information. Sizes, prices, availability, explaining about the roof, and that the long rooftiles are 28 cm from the house, we need them in 1-2 weeks, and that our constructor would mount them on the walls. And that I'd prefer mail, as complicated discussions by telephone in Spanish are not my forté, yet.

Well, the manufacturers of these gutters here are not very bright. One wanted the telephone number to discuss the offers, the other wanted to drop by to see the house, and possibly do the work himself. He's from Malaga, 3 hours driving away. Sigh.

No gutters, then. But, we need to get rid of the rain water. Another idea: why not have those canals along the house. Sort of a ground floor gutter.

The canals were laid down on a bed of cement. On top of the existing gravel. Which sits on top of geotextile. Which is laid onto a layer of sand. Which is on top of asphalt, which covers a concrete rim around the house. Meaning that water that arrives at the house can still get at the house through that layer of gravel and sand. That's why you see an almost identical picture 2 and 3, but 3 has the sand and gravel removed. It will be filled with concrete, and thus keep the water out. (Hopefully.)

Which needs a drain pipe, too. Which engineer Jansen constructed and dug into the ground, supervised by Zoomba. Digging trenches and moving gravel is not my favourite job, but if it keeps the water away from the house I'm happy.

I hope the capacity is sufficient, it's a 9 cm pipe, at a nice angle down. But, it needs to catch the water from about 100m², being half the roof, and the terrace...