Gutters are the cheapest water management a house has and the most ignored part of it. Tell us what yours are doing and we will line you up with Wasatch Front contractors who talk about where the water ends up, not about the metal.
The gutter's real job is getting water away from the foundation.
Pick the one closest to what your house is doing in a hard rain and we will route you to someone who does that work regularly.
Formed on site from a coil, so a straight run carries no joints except at the corners and the outlets. That matters, because joints are where leaks concentrate. Size and downspout count get decided by your roof, not by habit.
Learn more →Sagging runs, water still standing in the trough two days after a storm, corners that weep down the fascia. Most of it traces back to pitch that drifted or fasteners letting go, and neither one requires replacing the whole house.
Learn more →The gutter only catches the water. The downspout decides where it goes, and against the foundation is the wrong answer. Adding outlets, moving discharge points and extending the run out to somewhere useful is the half nobody quotes.
Learn more →They reduce how often somebody is on a ladder at your house. They do not end it. Products differ enormously in how they shed fine grit and how they behave in a downpour, so the real question is which problem yours has.
Learn more →Twice a year is the rhythm most houses here need, weighted toward after the leaves drop. What neglect costs is not a full trough, it is water going over the front lip at the one spot you would never choose.
Learn more →Three steps, and the first one is just a conversation.
Overflowing, standing water, a leaking corner, or water running behind the gutter. Each one points somewhere different.
Gutter size and downspout count come from roof area and pitch. An undersized run overflows no matter how clean it is.
Where the downspout discharges matters as much as the trough. Water released at the foundation is the problem you were trying to avoid.
A gutter does not exist to protect the gutter. Its entire job is to take the water coming off a roof and put it somewhere that is not against the house. The profile, the color, the hangers, all of it is in service of that one errand. Which is why a spotless gutter that drops its water straight down onto the dirt at the corner of the foundation has failed at the only thing it was hired for. The trough caught the water honestly enough. The system still delivered it to the exact place you would least like it, storm after storm, year after year.
Water discharged right next to a foundation is one of the most common reasons homeowners end up calling somebody about a damp basement or about settlement. Repairing that damage is not our lane and we will not pretend otherwise. But it begins as a gutter decision, and it stays a cheap problem for exactly as long as it is still a gutter decision. Getting the discharge out past the drip line, adding an extension, running the water down the slope to somewhere it can leave, sending it away from the low corner of the lot: that is small work next to what the same water eventually buys you.
Gutter size and downspout count get sized to the roof: how much area drains into that particular run, and how steeply it falls. A steep roof hands its water over faster than a shallow one, so the same footage of roof arrives as a harder push. If the trough or the outlets cannot take that push, water goes over the front lip in heavy rain no matter how clean the run is. Homeowners clean, watch it overflow again in the next storm, and conclude the gutters are junk. Usually the gutters are simply undersized, or a long run is trying to drain through too few downspouts.
The other two things that decide whether a run works are invisible from the driveway. Pitch has to be consistent the whole way. If it wanders, water stands in the low spots, and standing water is weight, and weight is what slowly pulls a run out of line. And every gutter hangs on something. Fascia and soffit that have been getting wet for years behind a failed seam may not have anything sound left to hold a fastener. A contractor who puts a hand on that board before quoting is telling you something useful about how the rest of the job is going to go.
Salt Lake, Utah, Davis, and Weber counties — Ogden down to Provo.
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Twice a year suits most houses, with the important one coming after the leaves are actually down rather than partway through the drop. If you have mature trees close to the roof, or the kind that shed fine needles and seed constantly, you are on a shorter cycle than your neighbor with an open lot. The spring pass matters more than people expect, because winter loads the trough with grit that washed off the roof and settled in the low spots.
Clean is only one of the three things a gutter needs. The other two are enough capacity and enough pitch. If the trough is undersized for the roof area draining into it, or a long run is trying to empty through a single downspout, it will overflow in a hard rain with nothing in it at all. If the pitch has drifted, water pools in the middle and spills there. Both are diagnosable by watching the run while it actually rains.
Almost never, though gutters get the blame because they are where you see the ice. An ice dam starts with heat escaping into the roof assembly, melting snow from underneath, and that meltwater refreezing when it reaches the cold overhang. The gutter is downstream of a problem that begins with insulation and ventilation. Replacing the gutter does not touch the cause, and that work belongs to an insulation contractor or a roofer rather than to us.
They are worth ruling out first, because it is the cheapest thing to check. Walk outside during the next storm and look at where each downspout is putting water. If it is landing at the base of the wall, or onto ground that slopes back toward the house, the roof is being emptied against the foundation every time it rains. Fixing the discharge is a gutter job. Whatever damage has already happened below grade is not, and you would want the right specialist for that.
Sometimes, and the honest version is that they reduce maintenance rather than eliminate it. They vary enormously in how they handle fine debris like needles, roof grit and seed, and in whether they can take the flow off a steep roof without water shooting over the top. A guard chosen for the debris you actually have can stretch your cleaning interval considerably. A guard chosen off a brochure can hide a clog until it shows up as a stain on the fascia.
Get a system sized to your roof. No fee to be matched.
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