How are gutters installed?
Seamless 6-inch aluminum is rolled on site, pitched about a quarter inch of fall per 10 feet toward each outlet, and hung on hidden hangers screwed into sound fascia every 24 inches, with the roof drip edge lapping into the back of the gutter. A typical house takes one day. Our published rate is $17.50 per linear foot.
How a gutter run actually goes on
How gutters are installed on a house
This is the sequence a crew follows. It is written so you can watch your own job and know whether the steps are being taken, not so you can do it — several of these are two-person tasks at height.
- Measure the eave and set the outlets Every run is measured and the downspout outlets are placed first, because everything else pitches toward them. Outlets go where the water can be discharged away from the foundation, not where the downspout is least visible.
- Take the old run off and look at the fascia The old gutter comes off before anything is ordered, because the condition of the fascia board behind it is unknowable until then. Soft or delaminated fascia is photographed and replaced, since a hanger screwed into rot holds nothing.
- Check the roof edge Drip edge and gutter apron have to overhang into the back of the gutter. If the roof edge kicks water behind the gutter, the gutter is irrelevant and the fascia rots regardless.
- Roll the gutter on site Seamless means the aluminum coil is formed to length by a machine at the house. A run without joints has nothing in the middle to leak; the only sealed points are corners, end caps and outlets.
- Set the pitch About a quarter inch of fall for every ten feet, consistently, toward the outlet. Too little and water stands and breeds; too much and the gutter looks crooked from the street and overshoots at the corner.
- Hang on hidden hangers Hidden hangers screwed through the fascia into solid wood at roughly 24-inch spacing, tightened to 16 inches in a valley run or under a long slope where the water arrives fast. Spike-and-ferrule fastening works loose and is why old gutters sag in the middle.
- Cut outlets, hang downspouts, discharge the water Outlets are cut and sealed, downspouts strapped to the wall, and the discharge taken far enough from the foundation to matter. A downspout that ends at the footing has moved a roof of water to the worst possible place.
Sizing, parts and the two numbers that decide performance
Two numbers do most of the work: gutter width and downspout size. A 6-inch K-style gutter carries roughly 40 percent more water than the 5-inch builder standard, and a 3x4 downspout moves close to twice what a 2x3 does. Almost every overflowing gutter in Maryland is a correctly hung 5-inch run with 2x3 downspouts under a roof that sheds faster than the outlets can take.
| Part | What it does | How it fails |
|---|---|---|
| Gutter, 6-inch K-style | Catches the sheet of water leaving the roof edge and moves it sideways to an outlet. | Sags between hangers, separates at a corner mitre, or overflows because it is undersized. |
| Hidden hanger | Carries the whole loaded weight of the run into the fascia board. | Pulls out of soft fascia, or was spaced too far apart to hold water plus ice. |
| Fascia board | The structural thing the gutter hangs on. | Rots from behind when edge metal is missing and water runs down the board instead of into the gutter. |
| Drip edge and gutter apron | Directs water off the roof edge into the gutter rather than behind it. | Omitted on re-roofs, or lapped the wrong way so it sheds behind the gutter. |
| Outlet and downspout | Takes water down and away from the house. | Undersized, blocked at the elbow, or discharging within a foot of the foundation. |
| Leaf guard | Keeps leaf and needle load out of the trough. | Foam types hold seed and grow plants; solid covers can shed a heavy downpour straight over the front lip. |
Can you install or replace gutters yourself?
Honestly: a short straight run on a single-storey elevation is within reach of a competent DIYer with a helper. Beyond that, three things stop it being a weekend job.
- Seamless is a machine, not a product. Anything sold in a store comes in ten-foot sections, and every joint you make is a joint that will eventually leak. The seamless gutter on a professional job is rolled at the kerb.
- Pitch is unforgiving and invisible. A quarter inch per ten feet is a small tolerance to hold across a forty-foot run on a ladder, and getting it wrong shows up as standing water months later, not on the day.
- Height is where this stops being a preference. Two-storey work, work over a deck, a slope or hard landscaping is a fall risk with no upside. Most gutter falls happen on the way down the ladder carrying something.
What is genuinely worth doing yourself: clearing the run, flushing the downspouts with a hose to find the blockage, and extending the discharge away from the house. That last one costs a few dollars and fixes more wet basements than any gutter upgrade.
Re-hanging a twenty-year-old aluminum run that has been off the house is rarely worth the labor, and if the original fastening was spikes, the fascia is already perforated where the new hangers need to bite. It is a saving that ends as a call-back.
Ask instead: What are you fastening into, and what condition is the fascia in behind the old run?Guards add weight and are fixed to the gutter, so they load a system that is already sagging. Guards belong on a sound, correctly pitched run. On a tired one they are money spent on making the failure harder to see.
Ask instead: Is the pitch right and are the hangers sound, before we add anything to them?Gutter installation questions
How long does gutter installation take?
One day for a typical single-family house, including tear-off of the old run, forming the new gutter on site, hanging it, cutting the outlets and strapping the downspouts. A second day is only needed when fascia has to be replaced, when the run is very long, or when access on one elevation needs staging rather than ladders.
How far apart should gutter hangers be?
Roughly every 24 inches into solid fascia, tightened to about 16 inches where the water arrives fast — below a valley, at the bottom of a long slope, or anywhere the run ices up. Hidden hangers screwed through the fascia are the standard; spikes driven through the front lip into the fascia are the older method and they work loose, which is why old gutters sag in the middle of a run.
What slope should a gutter have?
About a quarter of an inch of fall for every ten feet of run, pitched toward the nearest outlet. On a long elevation it is normal to pitch from a high point in the middle down to an outlet at each end rather than run forty feet in one direction, because a consistent fall over that distance would leave the far end visibly low.
Can I install gutters without a fascia board?
Not properly. Where there is no fascia — some older homes have exposed rafter tails — the alternative is a roof-mounted bracket that fixes to the deck under the shingles, and that is a job to be done as part of a roof rather than after one, since it means lifting the first course. If someone proposes hanging a gutter off rafter tails alone, ask what carries the weight when the run is full and frozen.
Do I need gutters on a flat roof?
Usually yes, in some form. A low-slope roof still sheds its whole area somewhere, and on a house that is a gutter, an internal drain or a scupper into a leader. What changes is that the edge detail matters more, because there is no pitch to help the water leave, and standing water at a blocked outlet on a low-slope roof sits on the membrane rather than running past it.
Do new gutters come with a warranty?
They should, and it should be two separate things in writing: the aluminum coil and the guard product carry manufacturer warranties, and the installation carries a workmanship warranty from whoever hung it. The one that matters in year three is the workmanship one, because a leaking mitre or a pulled hanger is an installation failure and no coil warranty covers it.
Where to go next
Gutters only work if the roof edge above them is right. These cover the rest of the water path.
What gutter replacement costs
The published per-foot rates for gutter, guard and downspout, and a worked example on a real eave.
See the numbers →Edge metalDrip edge, gutter apron and fascia rot
Why lap order reverses at eaves and rakes, and how reused edge metal rots fascia behind a new roof.
Read the standard →ServiceGutters and leaf guards
Oversized 6-inch seamless aluminum, 3x4 downspouts and stainless micro-mesh, sized to a Maryland downpour.
See the service →ThesisWhy a roof fails at its details, not its field
Roofs rarely fail in the middle of a plane. They fail at edges, valleys, walls and penetrations.
Read the standard →