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Dan Simms is a contributing writer at USA TODAY Homefront specializing in home repair, renovation and renewable energy. While working as a property manager for one of the largest real estate management firms in New York, Dan worked alongside contractors and renovation specialists to prepare homes for sale. He is an avid DIYer and has completed a shed construction and a bathroom renovation in his own home and investment properties. He lives on Long Island, New York. Reach out to him on LinkedIn.
Most homes should have gutters to protect their foundations from water damage.
Gutters are affordable and easy to maintain.
You should have an experienced professional install your gutters
Every time I clean my gutters, I contemplate removing them. Getting elbow-deep in gutter gunk isn’t my idea of a good time, and lugging the ladder around as I stump from one section to the next gets old fast. Unfortunately, forgoing gutters is a big mistake that can lead to costly problems such as water damage. So, the gutters stay.
You might be able to get away with not having gutters, depending on the climate you live in. If you do have rain gutters, it’s important to perform routine maintenance to keep them in good working order — and save yourself the hassle and money later.
The short answer: Gutters are almost always necessary.
The slightly longer answer is that gutters are necessary for your home if you live somewhere that gets appreciable rainfall. In this case, appreciable means any amount of rainfall greater than a few inches per year. For example, you might not need gutters if you live in Phoenix, which only gets around 9 inches of rain each year. More rain than that, and you’re asking for trouble if you don’t have gutters installed.
Let’s take a look at how gutters work and the role they play.
“So, what’s the purpose of a gutter? To try and remove the water from your foundation,” said Kevin Brauer, owner of Storm Guard Roofing and Construction in St. Louis.
Gutters route excess runoff from your roof to a safe place for disposal — such as an underground drain or another portion of your yard. Without gutters, the water would settle immediately next to your foundation.
When water pools around the base of your house, it can seep through cracks in your foundation or wick right through the porous concrete. This can contribute to leaks and mold growth. During winter, water can also freeze in tiny foundation cracks, expanding them over time. All of these factors can cause structural damage to your foundation.
Water pooling and draining around your home can lead to soil erosion, which can cause your foundation to become uneven. Since your entire home relies on your foundation for level support, soil erosion can lead to a whole array of additional problems, such as bowing walls and a sagging roof.
Water takes the path of least resistance through the ground, so once channels start forming, it’s hard to repair them. Properly functioning gutters are an easy way to keep the soil around your foundation healthy and supportive.
Ice dams are barriers of ice that form on roof edges as ice melts and then water refreezes. This often occurs on homes without gutters — or on roofs with gutters that are clogged and not draining properly. They’re a serious problem in regions where the temperature drops below freezing for large chunks of the year, as large ice dams can damage roofs by trapping additional snow and water up there.
Gutters alone won’t prevent ice dams from forming, but they help by removing water from your roof before it has a chance to freeze and form a blockage.
Gutters can help prevent mold formation and rotting of your home’s exterior walls, soffits and fascia boards. Moisture that accumulates under your roof’s eaves can also cause wood warping and decay — and mold and mildew growth, which can damage your roof over time and is hazardous to your health.
In most cases, you should have gutters. But there are some exceptions. You might not need gutters if you live in an arid climate that doesn’t get much rain. In places such as Arizona and parts of California, a properly graded yard might be sufficient to protect your foundation from pooling water during rainfall.
If you live somewhere with moderate rainfall but have excellent drainage and water runoff around your foundation, you might be able to forgo having gutters without much risk. You could use a French drain, which is essentially a trench filled with rock or gravel that redirects water away from your foundation.
Yes, probably. If you live anywhere besides the Desert Southwest, you need gutters. Even in places like Arizona and New Mexico, we recommend gutters. They’re cheap, easy to install and maintain, and could save the foundation of your home from water damage.
Gutters are essential anywhere that gets rain regularly, but they’re especially important in places such as Florida and Seattle, which are known for their prodigious rainfall. Even without the risk of foundation damage, heavy rain can easily cause basement flooding or standing water in your crawl space if you don’t have gutters.
You should also have gutters in the Northeast — even smaller amounts of rain can seep into your foundation and freeze during the winter, causing cracks and other costly damage.
Gutters can be very affordable, averaging $5 and $10 per linear foot, according to prices from Lowe’s. Vinyl gutters are usually the cheapest, followed by the standard aluminum K-style gutters. Seamless gutters or gutters made with high-end material, such as copper or zinc, can cost at least $15 per linear foot per K&M Sheet Metal.
The total cost to install gutters includes more than just the price for the gutters themselves. You also need downspouts and possibly a splash block. Installing gutters yourself is a good way to save money, but hiring a professional is a better option if you don’t have the skills or time to do it yourself.
The average 2,000-square-foot home needs between 100 and 200 feet of gutters. If you go for aluminum gutters, which cost about $1.30 per foot at Home Depot, you’ll spend between $130 and $260 for a home of that size. Downspouts cost between $15 and $20 each, so you’ll spend an additional $30 to $60, depending on how many stories your home has and how many independent gutter sections you have.
That means that the grand total for installing gutters yourself will be around $175 to $225 for a typical home. As you can see, most of the money for professional installation goes toward labor, as this is a very labor-intensive job.
If you don’t have the time, energy or experience to install gutters yourself, hiring a professional will generally cost you between $1,200 and $2,000, according to Hawaii-based Kapili Roofing.
Seamless gutters, which are customized for your home and must be installed by a professional, cost between $1,400 and $3,000 on average, per Wisconsin-based BRH Enterprises.
Labor rates vary by location, and the materials and your roof layout will play a role in the total cost as well.
Gutters aren’t too difficult to maintain, but cleaning them isn’t high on most homeowners’ lists of good ways to spend a beautiful Saturday. They also require cleaning at least twice per year, and some gutter systems need to be cleaned several times annually if you have multiple trees on your property.
If you don’t want to clean your gutters yourself, there are plenty of gutter cleaning services that you can hire to do it for you. Some landscaping companies include gutter cleaning as part of their fall cleanup.
Here’s a quick rundown of the most important gutter maintenance tasks you need to know about.
Leaves, dirt, pollen, acorns and other yard debris can clog your gutters and render them useless. I clean my gutters the old-fashioned way — with a ladder, a pair of gloves and a bag. However, some people have good luck using a curved hose attachment designed to clean gutters.
You should check your gutters a few times per year to make sure they’re not accumulating debris, but you don’t have to worry about specifically checking to see if they’re clogged. If you notice water pouring over the side of your gutter when it rains, you have a clog.
Gutter guards are also helpful if you have a hard time keeping your gutters clear. Make sure you choose the right type of gutter guard for the debris you have. Brauer explained that each environment requires the appropriate gutter guard. For example, if you have “pine needles that are shedding on a regular basis, it’s a much different application than if [you] have oak leaves.”
Built-up debris can cause your gutters to sag by trapping water, which quickly gets too heavy for the gutter to support. The best way to deal with sagging gutters is to avoid letting them develop, but if you get caught by surprise, here’s what you can do.
The easiest way to fix a sagging gutter is to remove, clean and reinstall it. It’s much easier to clean the gutter with it on the ground, and you can give it a more careful inspection while it’s detached from the roof. Look for any cracks that may have developed and decide if you need to replace the gutter. If the gutter is bent too much, it will collect water and wind up sagging again.
Fixing a sagging gutter is well within reach of most home DIYers. If you’re not sure you’re up to the task, hire a professional. It won’t cost much to have someone come take a look, and you’ll be thankful for the extra set of eyes when the time comes to decide whether to replace the gutter section.
Leaks and holes in your gutters are more difficult to discover than clogged or sagging gutters because they’re localized problems, so you’ll only find them if you look when it’s raining. You should take a walk around your house a few times per year to make sure your gutters are in good health, looking for any leaks or holes and paying particular attention to the seams.
If you find a gutter with a leak, you should replace it. Some people recommend patching leaks, but that’s asking for trouble and headaches. Your best bet is to simply replace the gutter. It will cost slightly more than patching a hole, but you won’t have to worry about the problem recurring.
Gutters are one of the cheapest additions you can make to your home that could potentially save you thousands of dollars in foundation repairs. Gutters shuttle water away from your home’s foundation, preventing leaks, mold growth and crack formation. They also help protect soffits, fascia, trim, siding and landscaping features, such as decks and patios, from water damage.
If you’re having trouble keeping your gutters clean, you can invest in gutter guards, which are typically screens or other barriers that attach to the top of your gutter to prevent larger debris, including leaves, from clogging your gutter. The best gutter guards can make the unsavory job of gutter maintenance a bit more tolerable.
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