We work all over Saint Petersburg

Older Saint Petersburg houses need solid fascia

A lot of Saint Petersburg was built early in the last century, and you can still see it in Old Northeast and Historic Kenwood. Many of those houses are wood frame bungalows with wood fascia boards along the roof edge. Your gutter hangs on that fascia. If the board is soft, the screws have nothing to hold, and a full gutter in a summer storm pulls off the house.

The trouble usually starts with the trees. Old Northeast in particular sits under big old oaks. The leaves pack into gutters until rain spills over the front edge or runs down behind it. Water behind a gutter soaks into the fascia board and then the soffit behind it. Give that a few rainy seasons and the wood goes soft. After that, rot can move into the ends of the roof framing, which is a much bigger repair.

So before we price new gutters on an older Saint Petersburg house, we check the fascia along the roof line. Soft wood gets fixed first. We repair wood soffit and fascia, and we install vinyl soffit where that suits the house better. Then the gutter goes up on solid wood. For owners who want the gutters to fit the age of the house, half round gutters and copper gutters are both on our list.

• Fascia checked along the roof line before we quote
• Soft wood soffit and fascia repaired first
• Hidden hangers fastened into solid wood
• Half round and copper gutters for older homes
• Old gutters taken down and the yard cleaned up

Flat lots near the bay hold water

Saint Petersburg sits at the end of a peninsula, with Tampa Bay on one side and Boca Ciega Bay on the other. Neighborhoods like Shore Acres and Snell Isle are low and close to the water. Shore Acres is full of concrete block ranch homes built in the middle of the last century. The ground around them is flat, so rain coming off the roof has nowhere downhill to go.

On a block house, water that drops straight off the roof lands right beside the wall. It cuts a trench in the planting bed and throws sand up onto the stucco. A short downspout that empties onto flat ground only moves the puddle over a little. In neighborhoods that have already had storm surge inside their houses, nobody wants more water sitting against the walls after every afternoon storm.

So on these lots we plan where the water goes before we hang the gutters. We install larger downspouts where a big roof sheds a lot of water. Where water pools in a flat yard, we can set a catch basin and run underground drainage out to a pop up emitter. That carries the water out into the yard, away from the house. Close to the bay, salt air is also hard on metal parts, so that is worth checking on any older gutter system.

Summer downpours overflow small or clogged gutters

From late spring into fall, Saint Petersburg gets a thunderstorm on many afternoons, and hurricane season runs through the same months. These storms drop a lot of rain in a short time. A gutter that handles a light shower can spill over the front in a heavy downpour, even when it is clean. The water then lands next to the doors and walls the gutter was put there to protect.

Clogs make it worse. Live oaks drop most of their leaves in late winter and spring, and palms shed fronds and seed stalks through the year. Once a downspout plugs, the whole run of gutter feeding it fills up and spills. You often cannot see a clog from the ground until the gutter is overflowing. We clean gutters and downspouts, and a cleaning before the storms start is far less work than replacing soaked fascia later.

For houses under heavy trees, gutter guards mean the gutters need cleaning less often. We install aluminum gutter guards and Gutter Glove, and we can walk you through which one fits your roof. Where a roof sends more water than the gutter can carry, wider gutters and larger downspouts fix the overflow. We also help you pick a color. One Google reviewer wrote: "The gutters look great and blend in with the house and trim color."

Getting a price in Saint Petersburg

Call (813) 539-5260, or send us your address and a short note about the problem through the estimate request on this page. We set a time to come out to your Saint Petersburg house and measure it. You get a free written estimate before any work is booked. The office is open Monday to Friday, 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM, and Saturday, 9:00 AM to 1:00 PM.