Your gutter company in Dunedin

Dunedin's shade trees keep gutters full

A lot of Dunedin sits under big trees. Live oaks shade the streets around downtown and the older neighborhoods nearby, and pines stand in plenty of back yards. Oaks here drop most of their leaves in late winter and spring. Pines shed needles through much of the year. All of it lands in the gutters, and a gutter packed with wet leaves stops moving water to the downspout.

When a gutter overflows, the water goes where you least want it. It spills over the front edge and soaks the fascia board the gutter is fastened to, and wood that stays wet rots. It pours straight down beside the house and cuts a trench in the flower bed. After enough storms, that water is sitting against the foundation. Inside corners tend to clog first, because leaves pile up right where the water has to turn.

On a house under heavy tree cover, we start by cleaning out the gutters and checking that every downspout drains. Then we look at whether a leaf guard makes sense for that roof. We install aluminum gutter guards and other leaf protection that keep most of the leaves out, so the water can reach the downspout. While we are up there, we check the fascia and soffit too, because rot behind a gutter is hard to spot from the ground.

• Gutters cleaned out and downspouts checked
• Inside corners and outlets checked for clogs
• Leaf guard options for oak and pine cover
• Fascia and soffit checked for water rot
• Downspouts pointed away from the foundation

Salt air wears on waterfront gutters

Dunedin sits right on St. Joseph Sound, with Honeymoon Island and Caladesi Island out past it and the Gulf beyond them. Houses along Edgewater Drive and Bayshore Boulevard, and the streets just behind them, get a steady breeze off the water. That breeze carries salt. It settles on every piece of metal on the outside of a house, and the night dew keeps it damp until morning.

Near salt water, the small metal parts on a gutter system tend to go first. When a hanger rusts through, the gutter sags between the hangers still holding, and water sits in the low spot. That standing water adds weight and the sag gets worse. On a waterfront house we check those parts before anything else. If the run is past saving, we replace it with new gutters on hidden hangers. Some homeowners go with copper gutters, which darken with age rather than rust.

Heavy rain is the other thing Dunedin houses deal with. Summer afternoon storms can drop a lot of water in a short time, and a tropical storm coming off the Gulf can rain for hours. A gutter that is too small, or a downspout that is too narrow, overflows even when it is clean. For houses that take that much water, we talk through a larger gutter and a wider downspout. Underground drains and pop up emitters can then carry the water out into the yard, away from the foundation.

Older Dunedin homes need gutters that fit

Dunedin is one of the older towns in Pinellas, and you can see it in the houses near downtown. Wood frame homes with painted wood trim sit a few blocks from Main Street. Concrete block ranch houses from the middle of the last century fill neighborhoods across the rest of town. On houses this age, the gutters have often been patched and rehung over the years, and the wood behind them has taken the hits.

A gutter is only as solid as the board it hangs on. Fascia that has taken years of overflow goes soft, and a new gutter screwed into soft wood pulls loose. So before we hang anything, we check the fascia and soffit and replace the wood that has rotted. We handle wood and vinyl soffit and fascia repairs ourselves, so you do not need a second company to fix the wood first.

Some older houses look better with half round gutters and round downspouts. These suit a traditional roofline better than the usual K-style shape. Others have an addition or a roof valley that dumps water in one spot. Those need a custom setup. One customer with an older home wrote, "The gutters look great and the work exceeded my expectation for an older house." At the estimate, we measure the house. We also show you color options so the gutters match your trim.

Getting a price in Dunedin

Call us at (813) 539-5260, or send a request with your Dunedin address and a note about what your gutters are doing. We set a time to come out and measure the house, and we look at the fascia and drainage while we are there. You get a free estimate in writing before any work is booked. Our office is open weekdays and Saturday mornings, and closed on Sunday.