Installation
Gutter Installation
Where does the water go?
Gutter is only half the answer — the rest is what happens once the water leaves the downspout. This page is what gets established before anything goes up.
Not what you are looking at? Metal Roofing, Roof Inspection.
Before anything goes up
Gutter hangs off fascia, so the fascia has to be sound.
If the board is soft the gutter has nothing to hold to, and it pulls away in the first heavy fall. That gets checked first, and on an older house repairing it is sometimes the larger half of the job.
- Fascia sound enough to take a hanger every two feet
- Drip edge in place, so water enters the gutter instead of running behind it
- Somewhere for the water to go once it leaves the downspout
- Upper roof planes discharging onto a lower one accounted for rather than ignored
The work itself
What Gutter Installation involves.
Gutters and downspouts sized and pitched so water leaves the roof and the foundation alone.
What decides whether it works
Sizing and fall, which is most of it.
Gutter that's undersized or hung level overflows in exactly the storms it exists for. Size comes from the roof area draining into each run and the pitch of that roof; fall is about a quarter inch every ten feet, toward the outlet.
- 01Roof area per run measured rather than judged by eye
- 02Five-inch or six-inch chosen from that area, not from habit
- 03A quarter inch of fall every ten feet, running to the outlet
- 04A downspout every thirty to forty feet, and more where a valley concentrates flow
- 05Discharge far enough from the wall that the foundation stays dry
What you are left with
Where the water goes, written down.
Photographs of the fascia before the gutter went on, the sizes and falls used per run, and where each downspout discharges. That last one matters more than it sounds: most of the damage a gutter exists to prevent happens at the foundation rather than on the roof.
About this job
What people said after gutter installation.
Gutters resized after years of overflow at one corner. Straightforward, tidy, and they explained why the old ones were never going to cope.
Demonstration account. The reviews above are worked examples, not this company’s own customers. They are here to show what this section contains once a real company fills it.
The next step
Start with the fascia.
We'll tell you what the board is like before quoting anything to hang off it, because that's the part that decides whether the rest lasts.
Frisco · Plano · McKinney