GUTTERS
Gutter installation, covers and cleaning in Yakima
A gutter is the end of the roof system. When it clogs, snowmelt freezes at the eave and the water goes under your shingles. We install, cover and repair gutters so it has somewhere to go.
Chapter 01
How a clogged gutter becomes an ice dam in your attic
Heat from the attic melts snow on the roof. The snowmelt runs to the eave and past the wall line, and out there it starts to freeze again. That is the beginning of an ice dam. Each time more melt hits it, the dam grows, and eventually it crawls up and under the shingles and into the house.
An uncleaned gutter makes it worse. A gutter packed with leaves and needles cannot move enough snowmelt, so the water sits, freezes, and turns into a giant ice dam of its own. Under trees is the worst place for it, and the valley has plenty of trees. Pine needles, leaves and plant debris find the gutters, the valleys and the roof drains first.
Bent hangers, sagging runs and downspouts that dump against the foundation are the other common failures. Water that backs up behind a gutter rots the fascia, and water that lands at the wall finds its way to the siding and the foundation.
Two-storey Yakima home mid re-roof with a crew on the ridge
Gutters, covers and the metal that hands water to them
We install new gutters and gutter covers, and we fix existing gutter pieces when the run is sound but a section has failed. A cover keeps debris and plant life out of the channel so blockages do not build up between cleanings. It does not make a gutter maintenance free, but it moves the cleanings a long way apart.
A gutter only works if the roof edge hands water to it correctly. That is the relationship between the drip metal, the shingles and the gutter: the edge metal carries water off the roof and out over the channel, not behind it. One customer wrote that we installed drip metal all around their new roof, and that is the same detail that keeps water out of the fascia.
The run itself needs hangers fastened into solid wood, a slope toward the downspouts, and downspouts that discharge away from the house. We set each of those before the gutter is called done, because a gutter that holds water is a gutter that freezes.
Chapter 03
A fall cleaning is cheaper than a winter leak
Our own advice is plain: cleaning the gutters in the fall can drastically reduce the size of the ice dam, or eliminate it altogether. That one chore keeps meltwater moving off the roof edge before a freeze catches it.
If you do not want to climb a ladder, our Basic Roof Cleaning plan is $175 plus tax, billed once per year, and it includes clean gutters and clean valleys along with clearing the roof surface and the area around the drains. You will find the details on the plans and pricing page.
We work on gutters across Yakima, Naches and the Yakima Valley under WA L&I licence YAKIMRR785KB. Call 509-907-7206 and tell us what the gutters are doing.
A customer's Google review specifically praises the drip metal we installed all around the roof, the same edge detail that feeds a gutter.
Keep the eave working
Two links to read before the first freeze
- The annual planRoof cleaning with clean gutters and clean valleys, once a year. See the plans and pricing page for exactly what is in it.
- The ice guard postBrandon explains how an ice dam forms, why ice guard has to stick to the wood deck, and why we seal pipes to it. Read Ice Guard in the Learning Center.
Related services: Residential roofing, Siding. Questions first? Call 509-907-7206.
