A single sagging section, a dripping corner, or a downspout that’s pulled loose is a repair. Sag along most of a run, seams weeping in several places, rust through, or gutters that overflow when they’re clean means the run is done and it’s time to replace. The difference is mostly about how much of the house has the problem.
We look at gutters all day, and we see the same signs over and over. Here’s what each one tells you and what it takes to fix.
What can I see from the ground?
Most gutter problems announce themselves if you know what to look for. Walk the perimeter after the next rain and look up.
Sagging or a visible dip
A gutter should be a straight line with a slight fall toward the downspout. If you see a belly between two hangers, wet debris has been sitting there and the weight has pulled the hanger out of the fascia or bent the spike. Standing water follows, then more weight, then the hanger next to it goes.
One sag is a re-hang. Sag along the whole run usually means the hangers are spaced too far apart, which is common on older homes in Van Nuys and North Hollywood where gutters were put up with spike-and-ferrule hangers every three or four feet decades ago. Modern hidden hangers go every two feet or closer. Re-hanging the whole run with new hangers is often worth it if the metal is sound.
Gutter pulling away from the fascia
If you can see daylight between the back of the gutter and the fascia board, the fasteners have let go. Sometimes the screw just needs to be reset. Often the fascia behind it is soft from years of overflow and won’t hold a screw anymore. Push on the fascia with a pole. If it gives, that’s a fascia repair before the gutter goes back up.
Standing water
If the gutter holds water days after rain, the pitch is wrong. Gutters should fall about a quarter inch every ten feet toward the outlet. Runs lose pitch when hangers loosen, when a roofer takes the gutters down and puts them back without re-leveling, or when the house settles. Standing water is where mosquitoes breed, where the aluminum corrodes, and where the weight starts the sag.
Dripping at corners and end caps
Corners and end caps are sealed with a gutter sealant that dries out in our sun. When it fails, you see a drip line or a stain below the joint. This is a clean-and-reseal on one joint. If every corner on the house is dripping, the sealant has aged out everywhere and it’s a full reseal, which on an older gutter system usually tips toward replacement.
Leaks at seams
Sectional gutters, which are the kind sold at hardware stores in ten-foot lengths, have a seam every ten feet. Every seam is a leak waiting to happen. Seamless gutters, which are run on site from a coil and have joints only at corners, don’t have this problem. If you have sectional gutters with leaking seams, replacing with seamless is the fix.
Rust or holes
Steel gutters rust. Aluminum corrodes where debris sits wet. Look for orange staining on steel, white chalky pitting on aluminum, and any point where you can see light through the bottom. Holes in one spot can be patched. Rust along a whole run means the metal is failing everywhere and the patch will be followed by another.
Tiger stripes
The vertical black streaks on the outside face of the gutter. It’s oxidation and grime bonded to the paint by overflow. It’s cosmetic, and gutter brightening removes it. But it’s also evidence. Tiger striping forms when water runs over the front edge repeatedly, so gutters with heavy striping have been overflowing, and the reason should be fixed too.
Paint peeling on the fascia or under the eave
Water has been getting behind the gutter. Either the gutter overflows at the back, which happens when it’s clogged, or the drip edge is missing or bent and water runs down the fascia behind the gutter. Peeling paint means the wood underneath is getting wet. What clogged gutters actually damage covers where that leads.
Downspout problems
A downspout that’s disconnected at an elbow, pulled away from the wall, crushed at the bottom, or bulging at a joint. Most of these are straightforward repairs. A bulged elbow means the downspout has been full of wet debris and needs clearing, and our downspout guide covers that.
Repair or replace?
| Sign | Usually a repair | Usually a replacement |
|---|---|---|
| Sagging | One or two sections | Most of a run, or spike hangers every few feet |
| Leaking joints | One corner or end cap | Every corner, or sectional seams every ten feet |
| Pulled from fascia | Fastener reset, fascia sound | Fascia rotted along the run |
| Rust or holes | One patchable spot | Rust or pitting along the run |
| Standing water | One section re-pitched | Whole system re-hung, and the metal is tired |
| Overflowing | Clogged, fix by cleaning | Overflows when clean, undersized for the roof |
| Age | Under 15 years, aluminum | Steel or sectional past 20, or vinyl |
What about gutters that overflow when they’re clean?
This one’s different. If the gutters are clear, the downspouts flow, and water still goes over the front in a normal storm, the system is undersized for the roof. This happens on tile-roof homes with long valleys that concentrate a lot of water into one section, and on homes where a five-inch gutter serves a roof that needs six-inch, or where a big roof has too few downspouts. Homes in Saugus and the Santa Clarita Valley with big, complex tile rooflines are a common case.
That’s not a repair. It’s a sizing problem. Gutter styles and sizing explains the difference between five and six inch, and adding a downspout or upsizing a run is the fix.
What about age?
Aluminum seamless gutters last a long time here because we don’t get freeze-thaw. Twenty years is normal, more if they’ve been kept clean. Galvanized steel rusts eventually. Vinyl gets brittle in our sun and cracks. If your gutters are vinyl, or are original steel on a 1960s house, and you’re doing more than one repair, replacement is the better spend.
Hillside custom homes in Calabasas and Woodland Hills sometimes have copper, which lasts indefinitely and turns green. Copper doesn’t get replaced. It gets resealed and re-hung.
What we do when we find a problem
Every cleaning includes a look at all of this. If we see a pulled hanger or a loose downspout strap, we’ll usually reset it while we’re up there. If we see something bigger, a rotted fascia, a run that’s lost its pitch, seams failing, a system that’s undersized, we tell you what we found and what it’ll take.
For replacement, we install seamless aluminum in five and six inch K-style and half-round, plus copper, with matching downspouts, leader heads and rain chains, in a range of colors. The options are on our products page. Gutter guards go on after the new gutters are up, never before a problem gutter is fixed.
For a look at your gutters, call (818) 913-1626 Monday through Saturday 7am to 7pm, or request an estimate. Members on the recurring plans get this inspection on every visit, which is how small problems stay small. We serve the whole area from Burbank to the Conejo Valley, and the list is on our areas page.