What is a right way to install gutters?

(a) Each time the gutters are replaced, it tears up and weakens the wood that the gutters are attached to, so I gave up installing gutters with nail spikes over 10 years ago.  In fact, I only used them once.  I realized right off the bat how terrible they were.  So I researched for a better method.  I use an extra strength hidden hanger, with hex head galvanized wood screws that I order from a supplier back East, since the supply and demand is such that the local suppliers have do not have the incentive to stock the better parts that are available.

(b) I place these hidden hangers every two feet, which is twice that of building code.  Placing them every 2 feet is especially helpful when you lean a ladder on them to clean out your gutters, or when someone needs to work on your roof.  It is far less likely to dent and cave in.  These brackets are more common where they have severe ice storms, and they have whole sheets of ice would slide off the roof and just slam the gutters off the house.  They also leave a much smoother appearance, like the wood molding they are to resemble.

(c) We all know how screws hold a lot better than nails.  In the old days they did not have a steel molding process to mold screws, so they had to be turned on a lathe from a solid stock of steel.  Nails were the only thing that was affordable.  These days we do have inexpensive screws.  They do still cost more than nails of course, but they would only add a tiny amount to the whole contract cost.  the best part about screws is that if the wood I am attaching to splits and cracks, or there is too much dry-rot, or even if the screw strips out the wood it is suppose to grip to, I will always know it.  The screw will not cinch down tight and I will not feel the drill kick back.  It will just continue to spin.  I then can back out the screw, change the angle, move the bracket, or change to a longer screw.  I know if it takes every single time.  Nails will not be able to give the installer that kind of indication.

(d) It is a fact that most installers in the NW are still using nails in these modern days, since all they care about is the bottom line. It is simply because the Gutter Contractor are too cheap to buy and replace a powerful $300 18v Makita cordless impact driver like I use.  Also a lot cheaper to replace when they get lost or stolen.

(e) When we are installing a 55 foot long gutter on a house, the hidden hangers are all in place with the screws started in the back, which stabilizes the gutter a great deal.  It only takes one person to install it.  It may be bowing a bit, I set the center screw, I cannot see quite how the end fits to the edge of the roof.  I go to the end of the gutter and measure how far I need to reset that center screw, then I go back to the middle and reset that screw.  I go to that end that is away from the outlet and pull it up as high to the roof as possible and set that screw.  I then work the level, giving it a slight grade down towards the outlet and set the screws as I work my way to the center.  Most times the center screw is not set to the right height, so I then reset it again.  I then work my way to the other end.  You cannot do that with nails.  Enough said?

Back in 1994, I was removing one short 16' gutter, without bothering to cleaning the leafy debris first, not guessing that the Mt. St Hellens ash was still in the gutter under the leaves since that 1981 blast. When I removed the last nail spike, the weight of that gutter was so much that it dropped out of my hand and dented the metal shed under the gutter. We had not seen that sort of trouble since Mt. St. Hellens first blew and the weight of the ash the washed down off the roofs pulled a lot of gutters off houses well before I began to do construction work. This issue had been the main motivator for my doubling up on gutter support brackets and using only screws to install gutter, since I began doing professional gutter installations over a decade ago.

This snow damage issue had not been much of a problem here in the Portland Metro area, since we normally do not get those sort of weather conditions here. But in the Winter of 2003/04 we did get a serious weather condition that did damage a lot of gutters. This was especially a large problem with metal roofs, where the house would warm up the snow from underneath and the snow would slide off, even on low slope 4/12 pitch roofs. Even with a few of the gutter installations we did, that snow broke off the screw heads the held the gutters up. Believe it or not, the aluminum gutters and brackets held up, but we saw that we needed to prepare better for the future and compensate for this sort of natural disaster.

We began in early 2004 to change over to stainless steel screws and to double up on each hidden hanger bracket. So it equals one screw per foot of gutter, which is 4 times the building code for gutters.

We wrote up a whole web page devoted to this issue, s click on the photo above to read more and see other photos.

In talking with home owners and from replacing several thousands of sets of gutters, I’ve found that few installers even bother to use a level when installing gutters.  They just install them straight with the roof edge, in hopes that the structure is not so out of level that the top of the gutter opposite the outlet is not lower than the bottom of the gutter at the outlet.  It is true that it does not take much debris in the gutter to upset this balance and cause the gutters to over flow at the low point, but even beyond the fact they are only required to provide a one year warranty, the Gutter Contractor can simply claim no responsibility to keep your gutters clean.  Fascia gutters are even deeper, making the margin for error even harder to detect.

Most fascia Gutter Contractor set their machine to bend the backside of the gutter to lay over the roof's edge.  Although this installation does not allow the option to level or grade the gutters down toward the outlet, so that it would rinse themselves out in a heavy downpour.  I have yet to work on a house that is properly level, let alone was built intentionally sloped to drain toward the outlets.  It’s not unusual where I have had to drop the gutter down 2" or more at the outlet, just to level the gutter.

If I work to give the gutters a slight grade down to the outlet, they not only will better be self cleaning, there is much less chance there will be any standing water in the gutter to possibly cause problems in the future, so they will likely last far more than a year.  They also will not be breeding ground for mosquitoes and smelly bacteria from the decaying debris.  That is why cleaning gutter gunk smells like S - H - I - T.  I sure hope you use gloves when cleaning out your gutters!

A proper drip-edge roof flashing is suppose to be installed across the roofs bottom edge by the roofer before the shingles are nailed down over it.  It is normally made to reach up 3" under the edge of the shingles, and hang down an inch into the gutter, but can easily be made to a custom fit and made with a safety hem toi hide the sharp edge of that metal.

A far cry better from the tiny half-inch lip on those cheap steel fascia gutters, compared to the 3" reach of a standard drip-edge flashing.  One of this flashings primary functions is to keep the rain water from soaking the plywood or chip-board along the edge, just under the roofing shingles, which would cause substantial dry-rot and damage to the edge of your roof, which would be very hard to replace and quite expensive.

The secondary function is to seal the gap from the roofing shingles to the gutter, so the rain water does not dribble behind the gutter.  That would also cause dry-rot to the wood that the gutter is attached to. Causing gutters to come loose, and even fall down.  Most home owners are familiar with seeing those large nail spikes that hold the gutters on, coming loose and sticking out.  You can have them hammered back in, but the damage is done, so they will not hold tight again.

The sad thing is that with most re-roofing, there is no requirement to file for a building permit, so there is no inspector called out to make sure that your house is being serviced correctly.  There is so much need for re-roofing in this area that it would overwhelm the building permit office.  They use the excuse that re-roofing is not changing the structure, which could add tax value, so they have let this type of construction work slip through the crack for several decades, with no oversight. This has detrimentally shaped roofing quality standards over the last half a century.

The issue of continuous gutters is a very important detail, and is one of the most defining detail that separate a professional installation, or just shoddy workmanship by someone who may not know what they are doing. Also, the use of box-miter and strip-miter corner joints is also an indication of amateur workmanship. There is no such thing as a truly seamless gutter. Each end-cap is a seam that could leak. Where there are corners of the house that has a wrap around gutter system; those gutters cannot be seamless of course. In those corners a professional installation would have just one seam, where those ends of each gutter have been sealed together. Not using a strip miter piece, or a larger box miter, which has 2 to 3 seams, which can rip open over time and leak from a change in temperature. Yopu may think they may look OK, but this is a blaring sign of amateur work. Not professional. To form a custom length continuous gutter to fit your house is what a portable gutter machine is all about. It is designed to transform a long flat coil of sheet metal into the shape of a gutter on-site, so it does not need to be transported around the City streets. It is possible to produce a single gutter up to 1,000 feet long in aluminum from a single 400# coil, but should never be installed longer than 50-feet long, or it will rip it's self off the building.

Although, it is very rare to see gutter contractors utilize and expansion joints, it is unwise to install a gutter longer than 40' to 50' long. Especially if there is a corner at the ends of that gutter run. Consider how any metal will expand and contract differently than a wood structure that it was mounted onto.  Gutters should never be installed in such long continuous length, and most gutter contractors know this.  With even just 1/4" movement from this expansion and contraction at the corner, it will rip the corners open within the first year of changing seasons.  There is a reason they make rubberized expansion joints for this purpose. There are a few other better ways that I create these necessary expansion joints on most of the gutter job we do. Yet, this is extremely rare to see done by other Gutter Contractors; when all they are required to do is get past the minimum 1-year minimum installation warranty, which defeats the purpose of using a long-lasting metal that will not rust out. Without this carefully implemented, I would say there are no other truly professional installers out there, since they are not willing to redesign your gutter system with this in mind, or teach their installers to utilize any sorts of expansion joints.

As long as there are enough outlets, I will split long gutters up by placing two opposing end-caps with at least a 1/2" gap between them fro this pourpose. I then cap over the two end-caps, so it will not dribble between them.  I then make a short piece of gutter to cover those end-caps from underneath to hide that gap.  This has an additional benefit, making the gutters more modular.  If a large tree branch falls and dents the gutter, or a delivery van backs up too far and crushes the gutter there is only half the gutter to replace, which happens all too often. I also implement a custom expansion joints at the outlets where possible. I designed a special tray that I make, since I could not attach an elbow to those 2-ends of the gutter that need to be able to move a bit, as shown here in this photo on a job I was asked to do in Canton Ohio back in 2013. Yes, 2,500 miles away.

What about sealing the necessary seams on gutters?

How many rivets can you count on this outside corner piece of copper gutter? Most Gutter Contractors install the flat face fascia gutters and a cheaper caulk, because those corners are so much easier to miter than my K-5 style gutter profile. Most of the gutters I have removed had less than half a dozen rusty zip-screws holding a corners together. It is very rare to see rivets used. This fact is proven by what is sold at the 6 different gutter supply warehouses within the Portland metro area. The zip-screws they use are a cheap and quicker way to bond 2 layers of thin sheet metal together, where the screw cuts through the 2 layers, pulling the second layer towards the first layer after stripping out that first layer, and hopefully not over doing it, which would strip out both layers and not hold them together at all. With rivets I have to first pre-drill an 1/8" hole through both layers, load the rivet tool work the rivet into the holes, press those layers tight together, and squeeze the hand tool to swell the other end of the blind-rivet, which bonds those 2 layers together. This riveting would only fail the way zip-screws do if I were to use a drill bit that was too large for those rivets. Those zip-screws are not a rust-free aluminum, or stainless steel, so they will fail either way over time and leave a sharp point inside the gutter that you will cut your hands on when cleaniong out the gutter several times a year. The rivets I use are made with the same type of metal as the gutter, so they will not cause galvanic corrosion. Also, I used 14 to 20 fasteners on each corner. When they use so few fasteners in a corner and no expansion joints (as described in the section above) it is bound to fail within the first year of the changing seasons, right after the new gutters were installed.

Amateur installers will always buy the thin-metal factory-made corner pieces for the K-5 style gutters, but the better installers will miter their own corners, so there is only one potential leak, instead of three seams.  If you see those pre-formed corners, it is very telling of the installer's incompetence, and there are most likely many issues that are lacking with their installation as well. They do not sell corner pieces for anything other than a common 90 degree outside or inside corners, so this leaves those unskilled installers lacking to complete many gutter jobs that have other angled corners to do.

Sealants?

How we seal a corner makes all the difference. In the old days all they had was solder to seal gutters with, since they did not have the advanced caulks we have access to these days, but it is now very rare to remove old gutters that had been soldered together.  It worked plenty well, but it was dangerous to have an open flame torch so close to the wood structure and burning the paint. Solder was not a sealant that could be used on aluminum gutters.  I use a caulk called ProSeal 34, which cost over 3X more than the caulk sold at the local wholesale gutter parts suppliers, since other Gutter Contractors are too cheap to get the best caulk, the Suppliers have no reason to stock what I have used on each gutter job over the last 2 decades plus.  It is a sad fact that I am still the only Gutter Contractor in the area to buy this better caulk.  We also use this caulk and copper rivets on the copper gutters we install, instead of soldering the seams together.

What can be done about the river of rain water pouting out of my roof valleys and shooting out over the gutter?

I've had  a shield made and attached to the top of the gutter over the inside corners, but it looks ugly. Is there a better solution?

Valley are certainly a Gutter Contractor's curse. To deal with this sort of rain management night-mare on many residential roof situation has proven to be far too much for most Gutter Contractors. It's also an issue where an upper gutter drains onto a roof (as seen in this photo). This is commonly the worst  problem area of a roof line we face. There is no type of screen that can be used to cover a gutter at the base of a roof valley or an upper downspout. At least here in the Northwest, where we have lots of very tall trees overhanging the roof. It will just become clogged up with debris before long and carry the rain water out past the gutter. Even without a screen over the gutter it is very common to see it shoot out over the gutter at these inside corners.

In most cases there is a very simple solution of cutting into the bottom of the metal valley pan to bend the edges downward in order to wick the water down into the gutter, yet for some strange reason this logic has eluded most every Roofer in business for many decades now. With this simple solution there is no need for those unsightly shields mounted over the gutter rim. It is best if it has a soft curve downwards. Not a sharp bend. I tend to make this adjustment in the course of replacing gutters, so this issue is resolved. Although, this is not a common practice, even when you have begged the Gutter Contractor to solve this issue.

Since we cannot cover the gutter with screen in these areas a good amount of debris will be collected in the valleys and forced down into the gutter and clog it up very quickly, required frequent maintenance, which is another reason the larger outlet and Leaf-catcher option is so imperative. I commonly can shove a screen that is curled upwards at the base of each valley to hold the accumulated debris up in the valley while allowing the rain water to strain through into the gutter, but the down side is how it will rust out the steel valley that much sooner and possibly becoming a damn that could force water up under the shingles if not cleared out regularly. The screen would help slow down the water a bit, but may also make the water splatter out some. I wish there were a perfect solution to this, but to date I've yet to find a better way of dealing with roof valleys at any cost.

Most every dormer I've come across which had gutters also have no downspout. The previous Gutter Contractor had just cut the gutter open back where the gutter meets the roof to dump all the gunky gutter water on the roof just below that valley, which creates a moss trail down the roof and horribly wears those shingles prematurely from the river of water flowing down in such concentration in those one areas. That is why for the last 20+ years I've always sealed the end of the gutter there at the base of the valley to catch the rain water coming out of that valley above. Then it is directed down to the lower gutter via a downspout and a custom roof tray we form and mount on the roof with stainless steel screws, so this river of rain water will be delivered to the lower gutter without touching the shingles. A detail I've yet to see done by any other Gutter Contractor in this area. You can see how I form this seal if you follow this link:

http://dmr-gutters.com/cg/Kistler5.htm#Custom

After doing it this way for over 2 decades I seem to be on the right track with no complaints. That stat surprises me as well, since nothing is perfect.

The aluminum gutter coil I buy from the the 2 main local Suppliers I use comes pre-painted in about 40 different neutrals and colors (see my Colors web page to see the list). They have not changed the painting technology much in the last few decades. This is a baked on enamel finish, like a car finish, yet not quite as durable, but is still better and smoother than any paint you can put over them, like a heavy house paint.  Even the touch-up spray paints sold at the same wholesale gutter parts suppliers are noticeably inferior to the original baked on finish these parts come in, which fade and peal off much sooner. I do stock gutter coil and all the downspout parts in each color, but the Wholsale Suppliers do, so they are readily available.

Can they be pained later?

Sure. These can be painted over as long as they are new or have been carefully cleaned, but it would require a lot of added labor and cost to paint the gutters and downspouts in the color you want. For touch-up it is recommended to use a light bodied spray paint, as opposed to a thick lumpy house paint. Years latter it is not going to leave such a thick ugly peal, which may be more trouble and costly to scrape smooth than it would be to replace all the gutters. I can sell you cans of matching paint, but it will fade and peal much faster than the original paint

What if your colors do not match my trim paint?

Most of the colors are earth tones.  If you can find a good color match, or a color you like, you would do well to get your gutters in that color, and maybe re-paint the rest of your trim to match, if needed.  Most all other installers will charge you extra for colors other than white or dark brown that they keep in stock.  They have done this so much now that they have trained most Homeowners to the point that white gutters account for around 60% of what is being installed.  It is of course simple to just draw from their stock of white parts they can buy in volume.

I actually discourage our Clients from choosing white or other light colors, because it shows mildew stains so badly. Like buying a white car and needing to wash it twice as often. I feel that it ought to be a matter of customer service to provide the right color suited for your house.  It is true it does cost me more to provide other color options and have to make these small purchases for each gutter job.  It is a hassle to spend an extra part of my day getting those other colored parts, not to mention having to spray paint the corners and the other specialty downspout elbow parts I use (especially on a rainy days).  But I would rather it look right, like it was meant to be on your house, and you feel good about my work when I am done.  It is much better for my referral business as well.

I stock 3 times as many types of downspout elbows as other installers, to give your house a more customized fit.  But these specialty parts don’t come in all those other colors.  I stock them in white and have to use the touch-up spray paint to get them to match. Of course with copper parts this is simply not an issue.

In fact, when they put up fascia gutters, they don’t use any elbows at all.  They just cut into the side of the strait downspouts with a hacksaw and fold it.  This cheap method is notorious for getting debris clogged in the downspouts. The fascia gutter bottoms are so narrow, they are also unable to utilize the oversized downspouts we offer for a no-clog gutter. We have even seen recent Street of Dreams homes with copper gutters that had the same sort of plain square downspouts and did not have any curved elbows? That was insane!

The smooth rectangular steel downspouts they use are even smaller than the standard corrugated aluminum down spouts that I use.  I can fit those downspout inside the ones I use.  I also attach the downspouts with a thick bracket that I rivet on the backside, and anchored with special coated Phillips screws for easy removal. This way you can paint behind it, or access the underground drain if needed.

I have seen a lot of downspouts detach from the bottom of the gutter, so I install the first elbow onto the bottom of the gutter with caulk and rivets before I install the gutter. I then double rivet each elbow attachment together, except the one elbow already on the gutter, so the downspout can be removed if needed without damaging those downspouts.

You can read more about this topic on my Downspout Comparison web page:
http://dmr-gutters.com/ds.htm

What is a Leaf-catcher?

Simply speaking it is a gutter debris strainer that is mounted lower to the ground in the downspout, where the Homeowner can easily access it without a ladder or tools, instead of having to get up on the roof in the worst weather, when you finally notice you have a problem. A strainer up in the gutter outlet may help to keep the underground storm drains clear, but they are death to gutters and should be avoided.

The only purpose of a Leaf-catcher (as seen to the left) is to protects the underground storm-drain pipes from getting jammed up with debris, but you want the gutters to continue to function and do their job to catch the rain water and deliver it to the storm drains.  These storm drain pipes are there to carry the excessive rain water safely away from the house foundation. Without these storm-drain pipes in good working order you are better off with no gutters at all and allow the rain water to dribble off the roof edge evenly along the whole roof line and hit the ground at least as far away from the foundation as the width of your eaves. A clogged gutter is also worse than having no gutters; with it continually overflowing at the low spot on the gutter.

I price Leaf-catchers on each bid when there is underground storm drain pipes.  We are not the only source for this type of device, but I have personally made several design improvements over those other designs, and we fabricate these Leaf-catchers ourselves with aluminum or copper sheet metal, which is thicker than what is used for downspouts. Along with a high grade stainless steel screen, which is stronger than any other. A raccoon could not claw through this screen.

We place this strainer in the downspout about hip height with this screen to catch the leaves before they can clog up your under ground storm drain pipes.  It’s a bargain at $60 to $80 each, compared that to the $75.00 or more per hour that Roto-Rooter type companies will charge you to attempt to clear out your underground storm drain pipes.

If you are not local to us, you can still order them through our Parts Shipping web page with a satisfaction guantee. You will also find detailed installation instructions. We also provide the special pipe cleats to remount the whole downspout, the rivets to connect it all, and even the stainless steel #3 Phillips screws to mount the downspout back on the siding, as seen in this photo.