Gutter Replacement in Kent, WA
When the system on the house has done its thirty winters: what comes off, what goes up, and how to tell a replacement from a repair.
Repair or Replace
Replace gutters when the metal has failed: rust-through, seams that reopen after sealing, runs pulling off the fascia, or a slope that no longer drains. A full replacement on a typical Kent house runs about $1,500 to $4,000; patching a sound system costs a few hundred.
A gutter system fails in two ways. Fasteners fail: spikes back out, hangers loosen, a run pulls away from the fascia or loses its pitch. Metal fails: galvanized steel rusts through once the zinc coating wears off, aluminum splits at seams and corners, and sealant that has been redone three times stops holding. Fastener failure on sound metal is a repair. Metal failure anywhere along a run usually means the rest of the run is close behind, and the labor to patch it is most of the labor to replace it.
Replace when any of these apply:
- Rust bleeding through the paint on steel gutters, or pinholes with daylight through them.
- Seams and end caps that leak again within a season of being resealed.
- More than one section pulled away from the fascia, or spikes backed out along a whole run.
- Runs that hold standing water after the rain stops because the pitch has gone.
- Sectional gutters with a drip at every second joint.
- Overflow in ordinary rain because the gutters are undersized for the roof.
What Kent Houses Came With
Kent's housing has a median build year of about 1985. East Hill's older subdivisions went in through the late 1970s and 1980s, the Panther Lake area joined the city by annexation in 2010, and the valley around the old downtown has older stock still. A house from that period that has never had its gutters replaced is running thirty-five- to forty-five-year-old sectional aluminum or galvanized steel, hung with spikes, with 2-by-3 downspouts and often one downspout fewer than the run needs.
Steel from that era rusts at the seams first, then along the bottom where water sat. Aluminum lasts longer, twenty to thirty years by the industry's own figures, but the spikes give out before the metal does, and a run that has sagged for a decade has usually cracked at a corner. A replacement quote for a 1980s Kent house is a normal event and should include a look at the fascia.
What Comes Off and What Goes Up
- Removal and disposal of the old runs, downspouts, and hangers. Some contractors fold this into the per-foot price; others line-item it. Ask.
- Fascia inspection. Behind a gutter that has overflowed for years the board is often soft. Replacing a length of fascia adds a few hundred dollars and beats hanging new gutters on rotten wood.
- Drip edge check. Roof water should land inside the gutter rather than run behind it; a missing or short drip edge gets corrected while the gutter is off.
- New seamless aluminum, sized to the roof, on hidden hangers, with corners mitered and sealed.
- Downspouts placed where the roof needs them rather than where the old ones happened to be, and extended away from the foundation.
Timing: Before the October Rain
October opens the wet season at Sea-Tac with almost four inches on average, and November is the wettest month of the year at 6.31. A replacement scheduled in August or September goes in on dry fascia, with the crew able to judge wood that is not soaked, and it is in place when the maples drop. Contractors book up from September on. Winter replacements are done every year and work fine; the crew waits out the worst days, and rotten fascia is simply harder to judge when everything is wet.
A full replacement on a typical Kent house is about $1,500 to $4,000 in aluminum, more with fascia work, six-inch runs, or guards. Ranges by size and material are in the cost guide.