Copper Gutters in Michigan: When the Premium Is Worth It
Copper does not rust, never needs painting and develops a patina that most people install it for. Whether that justifies the premium depends on the house, how long you are staying, and three installation details that decide whether it lasts.
Where Does the Water Go? Downspout Extensions, Dry Wells and French Drains
A downspout that discharges at the foundation has moved the problem from the roofline to the basement. Four ways to get roof water properly away from a house, what each costs you in maintenance, and the one thing that matters more than all of them.
Rotted Fascia and Soffit: What a Failed Gutter Really Costs
The expensive part of a failed gutter is never the gutter. It is the board behind it, the soffit under it, and eventually the rafter tails. Here is the sequence, and the two points where it is still cheap to stop.
Gutter Cleaning vs Gutter Guards: Do the Arithmetic for Your Tree Cover
Whether gutter guards are worth it is not a product question. It is an arithmetic question, and three of the five numbers are specific to your house and your trees. Here is how to work it out before anyone quotes you.
Gutter Apron vs Drip Edge: The Detail Most Installs Skip
Water that runs behind the gutter instead of into it rots fascia from the top down, invisibly, for years. The difference between drip edge and gutter apron, and why the second one gets left off so often.
Why Water Stands in a Brand-New Gutter
The gutters went up three weeks ago. It rained, it stopped, and there is still an inch of water sitting in the run. Nobody expects that from new work, and it is worth saying clearly: it is not normal, and it is not the material’s fault. A gutter is a sloped channel. If water stands […]
How Many Downspouts Does a Michigan Roof Actually Need?
A gutter that overflows in a hard rain is usually not too small. It is usually too far from the nearest downspout. This is the single most common thing we find on Michigan homes where the gutters “never worked right” — a long, handsome run of seamless aluminum with one outlet at the far end, […]
5-Inch vs 6-Inch Gutters: How to Size a Michigan Roofline
Gutter size gets quoted off the square footage of the house, which is the wrong number. What a gutter has to carry is set by the area of roof draining into that particular run, how steep that roof is, how the water concentrates before it arrives, and how many downspouts are there to take it […]
Gutters in a Michigan Winter: Ice Loading, Damage and What Helps
Every February, someone calls about a gutter hanging off the front of the house and asks what went wrong with the gutter. Usually nothing did. The gutter was carrying a load it was never designed for, delivered by a problem that starts in the attic and ends at the eave — and understanding which part […]
Gutter Guard Types Compared: What to Buy for Your Tree Cover
There is no best gutter guard, and any comparison that produces a single winner has stopped describing the problem. The right choice is set by what falls on your roof, how steep that roof is, and how the gutter beneath it is sized and hung. This is a decision guide built in that order, because […]