Gutters

A gutter is a drainage system, not a trim detail

Most of what gets called a roof leak in this market is a water-management problem at the edge of the roof. The gutter, the fascia it hangs on, the soffit behind it and the drip edge above it are one assembly, and they fail as one.

What we do

• 01Gutter replacementSeamless K-style and half-round, sized to the roof area rather than to whatever was there before.
• 02Box guttersLining and repair of built-in cornice gutters on the historic stock. A carpentry and lining job, not a gutter swap.
• 03Gutter guardsWhat the four types actually do under a mature tree canopy, and what none of them do.
• 04Gutter repairRe-hanging, re-pitching, seam and outlet repairs, and when a repair is the wrong answer.
• 05Soffit and fasciaThe board the gutter hangs on and the vented panel that feeds the attic. Both fail from the same water.

The four ways a gutter fails in this climate

It is undersized for the roof

A 5-inch K-style gutter handles a modest simple roof. A large plane, a steep pitch or a valley discharging into one length overwhelms it, and the water goes over the front lip in every heavy rain. That is not a leak, it is a capacity failure, and no amount of sealant fixes it.

It is hung on rotten wood

Fascia rots from water curling back behind the gutter. Once it is soft, nothing holds: spikes back out, hidden hangers pull through, and the gutter sags and holds standing water where it dips.

It is pitched wrong or not at all

A gutter needs to fall toward the outlet, roughly a sixteenth of an inch for every foot of run. A dead-level gutter holds water, and standing water in January is ice, and ice is heavy enough to pull a run off the house.

The outlet is the bottleneck

Downspouts, not gutters, are usually the constriction. One outlet at the far end of a long run backs water up the whole length before it ever drains.

Sizing, in the terms that are actually true

Gutter capacity is a function of the roof area draining into it, the pitch of that roof, and the rainfall intensity the area has to cope with. Pitch matters because a steep roof throws water into the gutter faster than a shallow one, so the same square footage needs more capacity.

What wind does to a gutter

This metro records damaging wind far more often than hail, and gutters take it in two ways. The first is direct uplift on the front lip, which is why hanger spacing matters: hangers every two feet hold a run that hangers every three feet will not, and the difference only shows up in a gust. The second is the gutter apron. Without a metal apron or drip edge lapping into the trough, wind-driven rain runs behind the gutter and soaks the fascia, and a soft fascia gives up the fasteners.

Both are edge details, which is the same lesson the storm record teaches about the roof itself.

The tree canopy problem

Older neighborhoods here sit under mature oaks, maples and sycamores that were planted when the houses were built. That canopy is why gutter guards are sold so hard locally and why they disappoint so often: oak tassels in spring and maple seeds are small enough to pass most screens and fine enough to mat on a micro-mesh, and a guard that stops leaves does not stop shingle grit.