Gutters · Service

Gutter installation, measured before it is sold

Seamless gutter is roll-formed on your driveway to the exact length of your roofline. We match you with vetted local gutter pros, explain the four decisions that actually change the outcome, and say plainly when new gutters will not fix your problem.

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In short

What is gutter installation?

Gutter installation means sizing a drainage system to your roof area and rainfall, then hanging it to a deliberate slope so water reaches the downspouts and leaves the building. On most homes the gutter itself is roll-formed on site from a coil of aluminium, so it arrives as one continuous length per run with no joints to leak. A typical single-storey house is a one-day job. The four things that decide whether it works are size, slope, hanger spacing and where the downspouts discharge — not the brand on the invoice.

Triggers

Signs you need gutter installation

Water sheets off the roof edge in a curtain during rain, or splashes back onto the siding at the eaves
The house has no gutters at all and you can see a trench of eroded soil along the drip line
Existing gutters sag between hangers, or have pulled away from the fascia at one end
Joints in sectional gutter weep constantly and re-sealing them lasts a single season
Basement or crawlspace dampness that tracks the weather rather than the season
Paint failing and wood softening on the fascia board or the trim directly below the eave
You are having the roof replaced and the eave detailing will be opened up anyway

Seeing something not on this list? Browse gutters problems by symptom →

The job

How gutter installation actually works

Measure the roofline and calculate the drainage load

The installer measures each run of eave, notes the roof area draining to it, and factors the roof pitch and your local rainfall intensity. That produces a required capacity, which is what decides gutter size and how many downspouts you need — not what was there before.

Watch for: A quote priced purely by linear foot with no mention of downspout count. Downspouts are the constraint on most houses: a long run with a single outlet at one end will overflow at the far end no matter how large the gutter is.
Size the gutter and the downspouts together

Residential gutter is mostly 5-inch or 6-inch K-style, with 2×3 or 3×4 downspouts. Larger roof areas, steep pitches and valleys that dump concentrated water at one point push you up a size. A 3×4 downspout carries substantially more than a 2×3 for very little extra cost.

Watch for: Six-inch gutter fitted to 2×3 downspouts. It is a common mismatch, it looks like an upgrade on the quote, and it moves the bottleneck rather than removing it.
Inspect and repair the fascia before anything is hung

Hidden hangers screw through the gutter back into the fascia board. If that board is soft from years of overflow, the fasteners have nothing to hold. This is the single most common find on a replacement job and it should be inspected with the old gutter down.

Watch for: A quote with no fascia allowance, or a crew that hangs new gutter on visibly rotten board because "the screws bit". Hangers pulling out of soft fascia is not a warranty claim on the gutter.
Roll-form the gutter on site

A truck-mounted machine feeds painted aluminium coil through forming rollers and produces a continuous length of gutter cut to your exact run. Corners are either factory boxes or fabricated and sealed on site. Only the corners and end caps are joints.

Watch for: Mitred corners cut and sealed casually on the tailgate. Corners are where seamless gutter leaks, because they are the only place it is not seamless. Ask how they are joined and sealed.
Hang to a deliberate slope, on the right hanger spacing

Gutter is not hung level. It falls roughly a quarter-inch per ten feet toward each outlet. Hidden hangers go in every 18 to 24 inches, tightened to snow-country spacing where ice loading is a factor.

Watch for: Spike-and-ferrule fastening on a new installation. It is legacy hardware, it works loose as the fascia expands and contracts, and it is the reason so many older gutters sag in the middle.
Set the gutter under the drip edge, not against the fascia

The back edge of the gutter must sit below the drip edge so water coming off the shingle lands inside the trough. Get this relationship wrong and water runs behind the gutter and down the fascia — with a brand new gutter fitted.

Watch for: Gutter hung too low, so wind-driven or heavy runoff overshoots the front lip entirely; or hung too high, so it fouls the shingle course. Both look fine on a dry day and only show up in a downpour.
Route the downspouts and decide where the water goes

Downspouts drop at the ends of runs and at internal corners, elbow into the wall, and then discharge. Discharge is a real design decision: splash block, buried extension to daylight, or connection to an existing drainage line.

Watch for: Discharge dropped at the base of the wall. A single downspout can deliver hundreds of gallons directly against the foundation in one storm. This is the most consequential detail on the job and it is almost never on the quote.
Water-test before the crew leaves

A hose run into the far end of each gutter shows the fall, finds any low spot where water stands, and proves the downspouts flow. It takes ten minutes and it is the only real verification the job works.

Watch for: No water test. Every other check on a gutter installation is visual, and gutters look correct to the eye at slopes that do not actually drain. Ask for it while they are still on site.

Money

What does gutter installation cost?

Gutter installation is priced by the linear foot, with material, profile and gutter size the main drivers, and downspouts, fascia repair and two-storey access added on top. Copper and half-round sit well above standard aluminium K-style. The gutters cost guide has current ranges by material and size.

See the full gutter installation cost guide — by material, size and region →

Straight answer

When gutter installation is the wrong call

Everyone else ranking for this is paid when you say yes. Here's when you shouldn't.

Your existing gutters are sound and only clogged. A gutter full of decomposed leaf litter behaves exactly like a broken one — it overflows, it sags under the weight, and the joints weep. Have them cleaned and inspected before you buy a replacement system. A surprising share of "we need new gutters" calls end at a cleaning.
The water problem is at ground level. If the ground slopes toward the house, or the downspouts already discharge into a puddle, new gutters change nothing. They will collect the same water and deliver it to the same wrong place. Fix grading and discharge first; that ordering is not a delay tactic, it is the actual sequence.
The fascia and rafter tails are rotten and you have not budgeted to repair them. There is nothing sound to fasten to. Hanging a new system on failing wood buys you a couple of years and then the whole run comes down, and the carpentry has to happen anyway.
Your roof is due for replacement within a year or two. Drip edge, fascia and gutter all meet at the same few inches of eave. Doing gutters first means paying for access twice and risking damage to a new system during tear-off. Sequence them together.
You are chasing ice dams. Gutters do not cause ice dams and new ones will not stop them — the cause is heat escaping into the roof deck and melting snow that refreezes at the cold eave. That is an attic insulation and ventilation problem. New gutters will simply be the thing that gets torn off by the ice.
The only failure is one leaking joint or one sagging run. Sectional gutter is repairable and re-hangable. Replacing forty linear feet because eight of them dropped is a legitimate upsell, not a necessity — ask specifically what is wrong with the rest.

Your options

Types of gutter installation

Seamless vs sectional

The joints are where gutters leak — this is the first decision, and it is mostly about who installs it.

Gutter materials

Aluminium, steel, copper and vinyl behave very differently over twenty years.

Gutter guards

A separate purchase with a very wide quality range — worth deciding on its own merits.

Compare gutters options side by side →

Straight answer

Can I do this myself?

The hazard on this job is the ladder, not the gutter. Almost all serious gutter injuries are falls from height, and the highest-risk moments are working a ladder near a corner, leaning sideways to reach one more foot, and setting a ladder on soft or sloping ground. Anything above single-storey, anything over a hard surface, and anything on a steep site is not a solo job.

Reasonable to DIY

Cleaning existing gutters and downspouts, at single-storey height, with the ladder footed by another person
Installing sectional gutter from a home centre on a shed, garage or porch — short straight runs with one downspout
Adding or extending downspout elbows and buried extensions to move discharge away from the foundation
Replacing individual hidden hangers, end caps and downspout brackets on a system that is otherwise sound
Re-sealing an interior corner or a sectional joint with gutter sealant, after the surface is properly cleaned and dried

Call a licensed pro

Seamless gutter of any length — the roll-forming machine is truck-mounted and is not rented to homeowners
Anything at second-storey height, over a stairwell, or on a steep or unstable site
Runs where the fascia needs repair or replacement, because that is carpentry at height on a load-bearing detail
Setting the slope on a long run, or diagnosing why an existing run holds standing water
Half-round, copper, box gutter and any built-in gutter — specialist fabrication with a very unforgiving learning curve
Tying downspouts into an existing buried drainage line

Before you sign

What to check when hiring for gutter installation

How many downspouts are you including, and how did you arrive at that number?

The answer separates a measured job from a linear-foot quote. If downspout count came from "what was there", nothing has been calculated.
What gutter size and downspout size are you quoting, and why that combination?

Guards against the six-inch-gutter-on-2×3-downspout mismatch, which reads as an upgrade and performs as a bottleneck.
What happens if you find rotten fascia — is there an allowance, or is it a change order?

The most common surprise on a replacement. Get it priced as an allowance with a rate per foot, so the number is agreed before anyone is on a ladder.
Where will each downspout discharge?

The detail that decides whether your foundation stays dry. Splash block, extension, or buried run to daylight — you want this answered on the quote, not improvised on the day.
How are the corners fabricated and sealed?

Seamless gutter leaks at corners because corners are its only joints. Factory boxes and properly sealed site mitres both work; a rushed tailgate mitre does not.
Will you water-test the runs before you leave?

The only verification that the slope and the outlets actually work. A pro who intends to do it will say yes immediately.
What does the warranty cover — the aluminium, the paint finish, or the labour?

These are three separate warranties from three different parties and they are routinely presented as one. Ask which is which and how long each runs.

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Local pros

Gutter Installation near you

Local pro matching for gutter installation is rolling out by metro. Enter your ZIP and we'll match you with vetted pros in your area today.

Related work

Often done at the same time

Gutter Repair

When the system is fixable rather than finished

Gutter Guards

The separate purchase that follows most new installs

Downspout Installation

Where the water actually goes

Gutter Cleaning

Often the real answer to an overflow

All gutters services →

FAQ

Gutter Installation — questions people ask

Still have a question? Talk to our team →

How long does gutter installation take?

A straightforward single-storey house is normally a one-day job, including tear-off of the old system. Add time for fascia repair, for two-storey access, for a complicated roofline with many corners, or for a material that has to be fabricated off site. Seamless gutter is formed on your driveway as the crew works, so there is no lead time for the gutter itself.

Do I need 5-inch or 6-inch gutters?

It depends on how much water arrives at that eave, which is a function of the roof area draining to it, the roof pitch and your local rainfall intensity — not the size of the house. Six-inch is the sensible default for large or steep roofs and for valleys that dump concentrated flow at one point. The related decision matters just as much: a 6-inch gutter fed into a 2×3 downspout has not solved a capacity problem, it has moved it.

Are seamless gutters worth it over sectional?

For a full-house installation, generally yes, because every joint in sectional gutter is a future leak and a long elevation can have many of them. Seamless is not literally seamless — it has corners and end caps — but it removes the joints in the straight runs where thermal movement works sealant loose. The trade-off is that you cannot install it yourself, and a short garage or porch run is a perfectly reasonable place to use sectional.

How much slope should gutters have?

A common rule of thumb is around a quarter-inch of fall per ten feet toward the outlet, but the number matters less than the outcome: after a rain there should be no standing water anywhere in the run. Very long runs are often pitched from a high point in the middle to a downspout at each end rather than run at a single fall across the whole length, which would drop the far end noticeably below the roofline.

Can I install gutters myself?

Sectional gutter on a short, straight, single-storey run — a garage, a porch, a shed — is a realistic weekend project, and the ladder is the risk rather than the gutter. Seamless is not a DIY option because the roll-former is truck-mounted equipment. Where DIY installations most often go wrong is slope and hanger spacing: both look fine from the ground and only fail in a real downpour.

Should gutters be replaced at the same time as the roof?

If both are near the end of their life, yes — drip edge, fascia and gutter all meet at the same few inches of eave, the access is already paid for, and the fascia can be seen and repaired while it is exposed. If your gutters are sound, keeping them is a legitimate choice; ask the roofing crew to protect and re-hang them rather than assuming they will.