We work on gutters across Clearwater

Older Clearwater homes hide rot behind gutters

Clearwater is an old city by Florida standards. Near downtown, Harbor Oaks and the streets around it still have houses with wood fascia and deep eaves. Their roofs have more corners and angles than a newer house. Farther out you find block and stucco ranch houses on flat lots, then the newer subdivisions up around Countryside. Each of those needs something different from a gutter, and a quote that treats them all alike will miss something.

On an older house the gutter is screwed or nailed into the fascia board, and that board is often the original wood. Water that spills over the back of a gutter for years soaks into it. The rot starts behind the gutter, where nobody looks. The first sign is often a gutter sagging away from the roof, or a soft patch in the soffit. By then the board is spongy, and new hangers have nothing solid to hold.

So on a Clearwater house with wood trim, we check the fascia before we talk about gutters. If the board is sound, the new gutter goes up on hidden hangers fastened into solid wood. If it is soft, that section of fascia and soffit gets replaced first, and we tell you that before any work starts. Hanging a new gutter on rotten wood just means paying for the job twice.

• Fascia boards checked for rot before we quote
• Rotted wood replaced before new gutters go up
• New gutters hung on hidden hangers in solid wood
• Downspouts added where a long run overflows
• Old gutters taken down and the yard cleaned up

Heavy summer rain overflows small downspouts

On many summer afternoons in Clearwater, a thunderstorm rolls through and drops heavy rain in a short burst. A gutter only works if the water can leave it as fast as the roof sends it in. When the downspouts are too small or too few, the gutter fills and spills over the front edge. From the ground it looks like a waterfall off the roof, and all of it lands right along the house.

The ground in Pinellas County is mostly sand, and sand washes away quickly. Water pouring off one corner of a roof digs a trench in the planting bed and leaves the foundation sitting in a puddle. Over a few rainy seasons that turns into erosion along the house and water stains on the stucco. The gutter was up there the whole time. It just could not carry that much water.

The fix is usually about getting water off the roof and away from the house. On a lot of Clearwater houses that means larger downspouts, or an extra downspout added to a long run. Where the yard is flat, the downspout can feed an underground pipe that lets water out through a pop up emitter in the lawn. You still get all that rain off the roof, and it stops collecting against your house.

Clearwater oaks fill gutters with leaves

Clearwater has a lot of big trees for a city this built up. Live oaks shade the older streets near downtown, and pines stand over plenty of yards farther out. Oaks drop most of their leaves in late winter and spring, and pines drop needles on and off all year. Add the Spanish moss that tears loose in a storm, and a gutter under those trees fills faster than people expect.

Leaves collect at the top of each downspout and pack into a wet mat. The next storm backs up behind that mat and pours over the edge, often down the back toward the fascia. Wet debris is heavy, and the weight pulls on the hangers until a section of gutter sags or pulls loose. Standing water in a clogged gutter also gives mosquitoes a place to breed, right next to your porch.

How you deal with it depends on how much tree hangs over your roof. A house with a few trees nearby usually does fine with regular gutter cleaning. A house under heavy oak cover is a better fit for gutter guards, which let rain in and keep most leaves out. We install aluminum gutter guards and can tell you which option fits once we have looked at your roof.

Getting a price in Clearwater

Call (813) 539-5260, or send us your address and a note about what your gutters are doing on this page. Someone from our team comes out to measure the house. They look at the fascia and downspouts too. You get a free written estimate before anything is scheduled. If the real problem is the roof, we say so. One customer wrote that Blair "accurately identified the project's complexity and recommended involving a roofer to ensure a long-term solution." The office is open weekdays and Saturday mornings. Call first if you want to talk it through.