When Gutters Stop Doing Their Job
Most people only notice their gutters when something goes wrong. Water sheets over the edge during a storm and digs a trench in the flower bed. A downspout empties right beside the foundation, and a week later the garage floor is wet. A corner starts dripping onto the porch steps, and by February the steps are green.
Gutters have one job: catch the rain coming off the roof and move it away from the house. In Guerneville, where the National Weather Service puts average rainfall at about 49 inches a year, that job doesn't let up from November to March. Santa Rosa and Petaluma get less, but the big winter storms still test every gutter on the block. When a gutter is the wrong size, pitched wrong or packed with leaves, that water ends up in the siding, the fascia and the soil around your foundation.
Gutter Services Across Sonoma County
Seamless Gutter InstallationEach run is rolled out of one coil of metal right in your driveway and cut to the length of that roof edge. No seams along the straight runs means there's very little that can drip.Seamless Gutter Installation →
Gutter ReplacementWhen gutters are rusted through, pulling off the fascia or patched in five places, new ones usually cost less over time than another repair. We remove the old system and check the wood behind it first.Gutter Replacement →
Gutter GuardsGuards keep redwood litter, pine needles and oak leaves on top of the gutter instead of inside it. Metal guards also help keep dry debris out of your gutters during fire season.Gutter Guards →
Gutter RepairLeaking corners, sagging runs, loose hangers and downspouts knocked off by the wind. Most of these are quick fixes when they're caught before winter.Gutter Repair →
Gutter CleaningWe scoop out the gutters, flush every downspout and tell you what we saw while we were up there. We clean for homes and commercial buildings.Gutter Cleaning →
Downspouts and DrainageA downspout in the wrong spot can undo a good gutter. We move, add and extend downspouts so the water lands well away from your foundation.Downspouts and Drainage →Why People Call Us for Gutters
- Sized to the roof, not a stock list. We measure roof area and pitch and look at the trees overhead before recommending a gutter size or guard.
- A written price before anything starts. You see the material, the footage and the total on paper first.
- Built with fire season in mind. In high fire hazard areas we recommend noncombustible metal gutters and guards that keep dry leaves out.
How a Gutter Job Works
- Tell us what's happening. A quick call or the short form works. Give us your town and a sentence about the gutters.
- We measure the house. We walk every roof edge, look at the downspouts and check where the water ends up in the yard.
- You get the estimate in writing. The gutter size, the metal, any guards and the total.
- We install and clean up. Most houses are finished the same day, and the old gutters leave with us.
Local Gutter Work From Cloverdale to Petaluma
Sonoma County isn't one climate. West county towns like Sebastopol and Guerneville sit under redwoods and bay trees that drop needles and leaves all year, and the river towns see more winter rain than almost anywhere else in the county. Up the 101 in Healdsburg and Windsor, valley oaks fill gutters every fall. In Rohnert Park and Santa Rosa, a lot of older ranch homes are still wearing their original gutters. Down in Petaluma, wind through the Petaluma Gap pushes rain sideways into fascia boards and corners. Every job gets sized for that particular house, wherever it sits in the county.
Frequently Asked Questions
Usually that's the best time. The roofer has to work around the gutters anyway, and the new drip edge sits right where the gutter hangs, so doing both together saves paying for a removal and rehang later. If your gutters are fairly new and still solid, they can often come down and go back up after the roof is done. We'll look at them before your roof job and tell you which way makes sense.
You can hang sectional gutters from a home store on a single-story house, and some people do. The hard parts are getting the slope right over a long run, sealing every joint so it doesn't drip a year later, and staying safe on a ladder. Seamless gutters need a forming machine, so they're not a DIY job. On a two-story house or a sloped lot in Healdsburg, it's worth having a crew handle it.
For new construction in mapped fire hazard zones, the state's wildfire building rules require noncombustible gutters and downspouts, plus an approved way to keep leaves and debris out of the gutter. Vinyl doesn't meet that. Even on an older home where the rule doesn't apply, metal gutters with gutter guards are the smarter choice in Sonoma County, since dry leaves sitting in a gutter give embers an easy place to land.
The most common problem is pitch. Gutters hung dead level hold standing water, and gutters sloped too steeply overflow at the low end in a hard rain. Other mistakes we see: hangers spaced too far apart, so the run sags after a few winters, downspouts that empty right beside the foundation, and gutters fastened into soft fascia nobody checked. All of it is avoidable when the job is measured first. Read how we handle seamless gutter installation.
Watch the house during the next real storm. Water pouring over the outer lip, a dark stripe down the siding, a puddle by the foundation or a downspout that barely trickles all point to the gutters. So do peeling paint on the fascia and soil washed out under the roof edge. Any of these in Santa Rosa, Sebastopol or any other Sonoma County town is worth a call before the next storm.