Sterling Heights, Michigan · Macomb County
Seamless gutters, replacement, repair and leaf guards on the quad-levels, tri-levels and brick colonials that make up most of this city — valley-heavy rooflines that need more outlet capacity than they were given.
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
Sterling Heights went from 14,622 people in 1960 to 61,365 in 1970 — a 320 per cent jump in ten years — and on to 108,999 by 1980. It added better than 94,000 residents in twenty years, incorporated as a city in 1968 partway through, and has added only about 25,000 in the forty-five years since. The bulk of its 52,198 housing units therefore dates to roughly 1965 through 1980, and that stretch in Macomb County has a very specific look: the quad-level, the tri-level and the brick-front colonial.
Those houses do not have long straight eaves. They have split levels stepping across the front, garage wings and gable-over-gable elevations, so the gutter is not one run but six or eight short ones at three different heights, with valleys pouring into several.
A valley is a funnel: it concentrates two roof planes into four feet of trough. On a 1970s quad-level a twelve-foot section routinely takes more water in a downpour than a fifty-foot run on the back of the same house, and through a standard 2×3 downspout it will jump the front edge every time. Homeowners here call it a waterfall over the front door. The cause is almost never leaves.
Six-inch gutter with a 3×4 downspout under the valleys, five inch elsewhere, and the outlet placed where the valley actually lands rather than at the tidy corner fixes a large share of houses here. The stepped elevations add a second fault: an upper run discharging onto a lower roof plane, doubling what the lower gutter carries. That downspout belongs in the lower gutter or on its own drop.
The city is unusually clear here. Its Building Department states that “a permit is required to re-roof your house whether it is a complete tear off and re-roof or just adding a 2nd layer of roofing to an existing roof,” which closes the loophole homeowners are most often told about. It also states that “inspection fees are included as part of the permit fee,” so a quote adding a separate inspection charge is worth a question. The department is on (586) 446-2360, and requirements change, so we confirm the current position for the scope.
The city brought in Davey Resource Group from the winter of 2022 to GIS-inventory an estimated 37,500 trees on public streets and in city parks, expanding a 2021 pilot, and anticipated planting as many as 2,000 more. As of April 2022 it had taken 37 consecutive Tree City USA awards. That is a lot of leaf litter, and on a cut-up roof it does not spread evenly — it collects in the valleys and washes into the tightest sections. The city sits at 614 feet across 36.45 square miles and only its northeast corner is near the Clinton River, so for most homeowners drainage is the ordinary flat-ground question of where the downspout ends.
Formed on site to the exact length of each run. On a house with eight short runs and a dozen corners, the corners are where leaks live.
Whole-house replacement where runs sag, corners separate or the sizing never suited the roof. We re-plan the outlet layout rather than copy it.
Resealed corners and end caps, re-pitched sections, new hangers, and a downspout added under a valley that never had one.
This city is the clearest case for mixing sizes: six inch with a 3×4 downspout under valley-fed sections, five inch on straightforward runs.
With roughly 37,500 street and park trees inventoried citywide plus fifty years of yard growth, guards earn their keep on many of these roofs, particularly over valleys.
Stepped elevations mean fascia at several heights and plenty of return corners, where rot starts on houses this age. We replace board, wrap fascia and fit vented soffit.
Buried solid pipe to a pop-up emitter, so a valley-fed run is not discharging in one spot beside the footing.
We walk every elevation, note which runs are valley-fed and which upper runs discharge onto a lower roof, and check fascia.
Run by run: footage, size, spacing, downspouts, fascia work and drainage — approved before material is ordered.
We pull the permit with the Sterling Heights Building Department and confirm current requirements for your job.
Old gutter down, rotted board replaced, runs formed on site, outlets cut where the valleys actually land.
We do the whole roofline in house, which matters more on a cut-up 1970s elevation.
Our shop is at 31097 Fraser Dr, immediately southeast of the city — family-run since 2011.
On split-level and colonial elevations we calculate the area feeding each run separately — the difference between a gutter that works in a downpour and one that works in a drizzle.
The Building Department is explicit that re-roofing needs a permit whether you tear off or lay over. We work to that.
The two faults most common here, and the two a quick quote from a ladder never catches.
Every run itemized, so you can compare our number line by line.
Reviews come straight from our Google Business Profile, so you are reading what homeowners around Sterling Heights actually wrote.
The city runs about six miles from its south line up to Hall Road, a short drive from our Fraser shop.
The city’s Building Department states a permit is required whether it is a complete tear off and re-roof or just adding a second layer, and that inspection fees are included in the permit fee. The department is on (586) 446-2360. We confirm the current position and pull the permit as part of the job.
On most of these roofs, yes. The city inventoried roughly 37,500 street and park trees from 2022 and has taken 37 consecutive Tree City USA awards, with fifty years of yard growth on top. On a valley-heavy roof debris washes into the sections already working hardest.
Usually not. On the tri-levels and colonials that dominate this city, that spot is nearly always where a valley lands, and a valley funnels two roof planes into a few feet of gutter. Through a 2×3 downspout it overflows however clean it is. Six inch with a 3×4 outlet under the valley is the fix.
Original fascia and hangers, plus weight. Macomb County is set at a 25 psf ground snow load in the code tables, and refreezing meltwater adds to it. Once the board softens the hanger has nothing to hold.
One of the commonest faults on split-level houses here. The lower gutter carries its own roof plus everything from above, and the shingles under the discharge wear early. Extending it into the lower gutter solves both.
Further than a splash block manages. The city sits at 614 feet on generally flat ground, so no slope is doing the work for you. Buried pipe to a pop-up emitter well clear of the foundation is what we recommend under a valley-fed downspout.
We measure the runs, check the fascia and deck edge, look at the canopy overhead and write down exactly what we would do and what it costs.
