Cost and process for replacing our gutters

Cost and process for replacing our gutters

• 5.14.2020

Last week I shared about our exterior painting, all finished. That was actually the last part of our hire-out exterior projects planned for the spring, but we needed to do some other work including the awkward chicken-or-egg relationship of the gutter replacement with the painting, so I'm sharing about that now.

All the details of replacing our gutters, including cost and timing, in this post!

Gutter replacement

We didn’t realize our gutters all needed to be replaced until we started getting more specific roof quotes. And once the roof was done (the roofers cleaned out the gutters after, and they had been filled with leaves/debris) we could even tell ourselves. Most of them were almost rusted through on the bottoms. And some of our downspouts had been disconnected or no longer drained right.

Our roofer recommended his preferred gutter contractor, who came out and gave us a very reasonable quote to replace all the gutters except the very front ones, which appeared pretty new. It was $880 for all of them.

Then we realized we also needed new, not replaced, gutters two places that didn’t have them before: the gazebo and the hipped roof on the back of the garage. Rain just sheet-flowed off creating muddy erosion (and damage to the garage window). This added some cost; now our total was $1,210.

We had the gutter guys scheduled to do their work before the painters, but when they came out and learned painting was happening the next week, they advised we wait on the gutters because some of the areas needed painting (and old paint sanded off) which should go on before the gutters. The downspouts need to be painted, but the gutters are white—almost the exact color of the white trim.

The gutter guys told us to remove the gutters before painting, but the painter said he would leave them up while doing most of the painting to protect the new roof from overspray. (Another chicken-or-egg situation.) The painters did remove the gutters and prime and paint underneath on the bare spots, but after spraying the rest.

We had the painting done (see the post about that here) and the gutters were installed the next day!

Here's the gazebo--this space is still to be decorated (soon!) but you can already see the functional improvement of the protective gutter and downspout!

We still need to paint the downspouts, but what an improvement. (That is the downside of gutters after paint--need to have the painter come back or do it yourself.)

Also, the gutter guys consolidated a couple of the old downspouts so we have fewer now. And they added gutter and downspouts to the new areas, so functional!

Phew! We're glad to have this done and so excited to decorate that gazebo!