Fraser, Michigan · our own town
Seamless gutters, replacement, repair and leaf guards on Fraser’s postwar ranches — long, low rooflines that need longer runs and more downspouts than they were built with. Our shop is on Fraser Dr.
Family-owned and operated in Michigan since 2011
Based at 31097 Fraser Dr, Fraser, MI 48026
Serving Macomb, Oakland and St. Clair counties
Free on-site inspection and a written, itemized scope before work begins
Fraser is four square miles that did all its growing in one burst. The census counted 1,379 people here in 1950, 7,027 in 1960 and 11,868 in 1970. By 1980 it was 14,560; in 2020 it was 14,726 — a hundred and sixty-six more than forty years earlier. The village incorporated in 1894 and voters adopted the city charter in December 1956, and once the boundary was fixed at 15 Mile, Kelly, 13 Mile and Hayes there was nowhere left to build.
So the city’s roughly 6,870 housing units are largely a product of the mid-1950s through the mid-1970s, which in Macomb County means the single-story ranch: shallow pitch, a long unbroken eave, and an overhang that projects a foot rather than two.
A cut-up two-storey roof gives you a natural place for a downspout every twenty feet. A Fraser ranch does not. It is common to find a fifty- or sixty-foot run on the back of a house draining through one outlet at the corner, because that is where the builder put it in 1962. The far end carries almost nothing, the corner carries everything, and in a hard July storm the corner overflows while the rest of the run looks fine. That is outlet count, not clogging, and the fix is another downspout mid-run.
The shallow overhang matters as much: when a low-pitch ranch gutter overflows, the water lands within a foot of the wall, at the base of the siding, every time it rains. Low pitch also means snow sits rather than sliding — Macomb County is set at a 25 psf ground snow load in the state code tables, and the Great Lakes region averages about 42 freeze-thaw cycles a year according to the University of Michigan’s GLISA program. A trough of refrozen slush hanging off a 1960s fascia board carries weight that board was never sized for, which is why gutter work here usually turns out to be a fascia conversation first.
Fraser has almost no surface water inside its limits — barely fifteen hundredths of a square mile out of 4.16 — but two named county drains, the Harrington Drain and the Sweeny Drain, run north through the city toward the Clinton River, under the Macomb County Public Works Commissioner.
At 610 feet on flat ground, water your downspouts put on the lawn does not run away downhill. It sits, works toward the lowest point it can find, and on most Fraser lots that is the foundation. Getting it past the drip line is the whole job, and on ground this flat that means buried drainage rather than a splash block.
Formed on site, so a long ranch run has no joints between corners. Sectional stock puts three or four future leaks over your siding.
When the trough sags, the spikes have pulled or the back edge has rusted, replacing beats chasing it. We reset the pitch rather than reuse old holes.
Re-pitching sections that pond, new hangers, resealed corners, and an added outlet where the original layout never had enough. Plenty of Fraser calls are repairs.
Five inch suits most roofs; six inch with a 3×4 downspout earns its place on long single-outlet ranch runs.
Street trees planted with these 1950s–70s subdivisions are at full size now, so many houses sit under canopy the original gutters never faced. On an open lot, guards often are not worth it.
On a 1960s ranch the fascia is usually why the gutter failed. We replace rotted board, wrap fascia, fit vented soffit and hang the new run on something solid.
The answer to a flat 610-foot lot: buried solid pipe out to a pop-up emitter, so roof water leaves instead of soaking the ground beside the footing.
We measure the runs, work out the roof area feeding each, check the fascia by hand and see where downspouts put water now.
Footage, size, hanger spacing, downspout locations, fascia work and drainage — approved before material is ordered.
Old gutter down, rotted board replaced, the fascia line made straight before anything hangs on it.
Runs formed on site, hung to a consistent pitch, outlets cut where water needs to leave.
The roofline is one system and we do all of it in house, so a gutter estimate that turns up something else does not mean a second contractor and a second wait.
Low-pitch ranch roofs of this era have been through several tear-offs. See residential roofing.
The board your gutter hangs on and your attic’s intake vent. See soffit and fascia.
31097 Fraser Dr — a family-run company at an address inside the city since 2011, not a franchise with a landing page.
Postwar ranch, low pitch, long eave, original fascia. Our outlet counts come from being on a lot of these rooflines.
On flat ground drained by the Harrington and Sweeny, where the downspout ends matters as much as the trough.
Hanging new gutter on soft board is how these jobs go wrong. We check the board first and price the repair up front.
Size, spacing, downspouts and drainage in writing, so you can compare line for line.
Below is our Google Business Profile feed, live rather than copied into the page, so nothing has been curated on the way here.
Fraser sits between 13 Mile and 15 Mile, with Groesbeck crossing the southeast corner — most of southern Macomb County is inside twenty minutes of our door.
Almost always outlet count, not clogging. One downspout at the corner of a long ranch run makes the outlet the bottleneck. A second downspout mid-run fixes it permanently; cleaning will not.
It depends on your lot. Street trees in the 1950s–70s neighbourhoods are at full size, and houses under that canopy fill two or three times a year. Open lots do not. We look before recommending
Further out than a splash block manages. At 610 feet on flat ground, water eventually works toward the Harrington and Sweeny drains running north to the Clinton River — but it sits against your foundation first. Buried pipe to a pop-up emitter is the usual answer.
Weight on old fastenings. Macomb County is set at a 25 psf ground snow load, a low-pitch roof holds snow instead of shedding it, and meltwater refreezes in the trough. On original fascia, that is what pulls a gutter off the wall.
More often than people assume. The case for six inch is a long run with few possible outlet locations. It is a capacity calculation, and we show you the numbers.
Where the work requires one, we pull it with the City of Fraser’s Building and Code Enforcement department. Requirements and fees are set by the city and change, so we confirm the current position for your scope.
We measure the runs, count the outlets your roof actually needs, check the fascia and give you a written scope. If a repair is the right answer, that is what it will say.
