Gutters and Downspouts in Fremont, CA

We run seamless aluminum gutters on site, straight off the machine in the length of each run, so the only joints are at the corners and the outlets. Sectional gutters from a hardware store leak at every seam within a few winters; a one-piece run has nothing to leak from but the corners, and those get sealed properly.

Sizing matters more than most people expect. The standard residential gutter is a five inch K-style profile, and for a small single-story ranch with a shallow roof that is plenty. On a bigger roof, a steep roof that throws water fast, or a long run that drains to a single downspout, we step up to a six inch gutter and larger downspouts so the storm goes down the pipe instead of over the front edge. A gutter that overflows in every big storm is not broken; it is undersized for the roof above it.

The gutter is hung on hidden hangers screwed into the fascia at close spacing, pitched slightly toward the outlets so water does not sit and breed mosquitoes in August. Where the fascia board behind the old gutter has rotted, which is common on the shady side of older houses, we replace the board before the new gutter goes up. That fascia and soffit work is covered on the roof repair page. Colors are baked on at the factory, and there are enough of them to match trim, stucco or the shingle color.

A gutter only moves water sideways. The downspout is what gets it off the house, and where that water lands matters more here than in most places, because so much of the East Bay sits on clay soil. Clay swells when it is wet and shrinks when it dries, and a downspout dumping against the foundation every winter is a slow way to crack a stem wall or lift a slab.

We place downspouts where the roof actually collects water, not just where the old ones happened to be, and we size them to the gutter: a three by four inch downspout carries about twice what a two by three does and clogs far less often. Each one ends in an extension or a splash block that carries the water several feet out onto the lawn, or ties into an underground drain line that daylights at the curb or a dry well, if the yard has one. On a house with a raised foundation and a damp crawl space, getting the downspouts away from the wall is often the whole fix. On a hillside lot in the Oakland or Hayward hills, where the water has to go somewhere below you, we talk through the drainage path before we set a single outlet.

Anyone with a coast redwood, a valley oak or a Monterey pine over the roof knows the problem. Redwoods drop a steady rain of fine needles and small cones that pack into a gutter like felt. Oaks drop leaves through the fall and acorns that jam the outlet. Pines drop needles all year. A gutter under those trees fills in a season, and once it is full the water goes over the edge as if the gutter were not there.

Gutter guards are the answer for those houses. We install a mesh or perforated metal guard that fits under the first course of shingles or clips to the front lip of the gutter, so needles and leaves slide off the roof while water drops through. Fine mesh handles redwood needles; a coarser perforated guard is enough for oak leaves and costs less. No guard is maintenance-free, and anyone who says otherwise has not lived under a redwood, but a good guard turns a cleaning every fall into a quick brush-off every few years. We fit guards on new gutters and on existing gutters that are still sound. The post on moss, algae and tree debris on East Bay roofs covers what those same trees do to the roof itself.

If the gutters are open, they need cleaning every fall before the rains, and under heavy trees a second pass midwinter. We clean by hand and flush every run with a hose, then run water down each downspout to make sure it is clear to the bottom. A downspout that is packed solid at the elbow will back the whole gutter up in the first storm, and it is the part a homeowner on a ladder cannot see.

While we are up there we check the hangers, the pitch, the corners and the outlets, and we look at the roof edge, the drip edge and the first course of shingles, because a gutter that has been full for a year has usually been soaking the fascia and the sheathing behind it. Gutter cleaning is part of our yearly roof maintenance visit, and it is available on its own. It is one of the cheaper things you can do for a house before December.

The best time to replace gutters is with the roof. On a roof replacement the old gutters come off with the old roof, the fascia is exposed and easy to repair, the new drip edge is set to lap into the new gutter, and the whole edge of the house goes back together in one job. It costs less than doing them separately and the two systems are built to work together.

That said, most of our gutter jobs are stand-alone. A roof with plenty of life left and gutters that are rusted, sagging or undersized is a normal call. We take the old gutters down, fix the fascia, hang the new runs and set the downspouts, usually in a day on an average house. We do this work across the East Bay and South Bay, from the older bungalows in Oakland and San Leandro to the ranch houses in Newark a few minutes from our shop.

The gutter catches what the roof sheds, and what the roof sheds includes everything that washes off a rusting pipe flashing. On a painted pipe jack the paint begins to wear within the first year, the metal underneath starts to oxidize, and the rust streaks run down the shingles into the gutter. Sonrise Roofing finishes pipe flashings and vents with a stone-coated surface from California Stone Coating that resists rust, is designed not to chip, peel or fade, and matches the shingle color, so the roof above your new gutters stays clean and the flashing base stays sealed. If you are replacing gutters on a roof that still has painted pipes, ask Adeline about swapping them at the same time. The stone-coated flashings page explains the product.