Seamless Gutter Installation & Repair

Yes, and the reason is specific to this climate. Sectional gutters join short pre-made lengths together, and every joint is sealed. Those seals expand and contract through freeze-thaw cycling, then carry the weight of ice, and eventually they leak or pull apart. It is the single most common gutter failure we are called out to.

Seamless gutters are rolled to length on site from a continuous coil, so a run has joints only at corners and outlets. Fewer joints, fewer failures. The install requires the fabrication equipment on the truck, which is why not every contractor offers it.

Some do, many do not. Fine-mesh and reverse-curve products that work well in milder climates can trap ice and snow, and a guard holding an ice sheet over the gutter is worse than no guard at all — it makes the gutter impossible to clear and adds weight to the fascia.

We install products we have watched perform through Twin Cities winters and match them to your roof pitch, tree coverage, and snow load. If your roof is steep and you have no overhanging trees, we may tell you that you do not need guards, which is a cheaper answer than the one you were expecting.

Gutters do not cause ice dams — heat loss into the attic does — but a gutter packed with ice gives the dam something to build on and stops meltwater draining once the dam forms. Clear, correctly-pitched gutters are part of managing the problem, though insulation is the actual fix.

At ground level, gutters and downspouts exist to move snowmelt away from the foundation. Undersized gutters or downspouts discharging next to the wall put thousands of gallons a year against the foundation, and that shows up as a wet basement long before anyone blames the gutters.

Five-inch K-style gutter with 2x3 inch downspouts is the standard on most Twin Cities homes and handles typical roof areas without trouble. Six-inch gutter with 3x4 inch downspouts moves substantially more water and is worth specifying on large roof areas, steep pitches that shed fast, and long runs with few outlets.

Downspout count matters as much as gutter size and gets less attention. A long run draining to a single outlet will overflow at the far end in heavy rain regardless of how big the trough is. We work out the outlets from the roof area feeding each run rather than putting one at each end by habit.

Weight. A gutter packed with ice can carry a great deal of load, and where it is hung on old spikes driven into the fascia, or on hangers spaced too far apart, that load pulls the fasteners out and the gutter sags or comes away entirely.

Hidden hangers screwed into the fascia at proper spacing hold far better than the spike-and-ferrule method common on older homes. If your gutters have pulled loose more than once, the fastening is the problem, not the gutter.

Away from the house — further away than most downspouts manage. A downspout discharging at the base of the wall puts thousands of gallons a year against your foundation, and that is what shows up later as a damp basement, efflorescence on the block, or settling.

Extensions, splash blocks or a buried drain line that carries water several feet clear of the foundation cost very little compared with what foundation water does. It is the least glamorous part of a gutter job and probably the most valuable.