Gutter repair and replacement in Upper Arlington, Ohio

Gutters in Upper Arlington

Upper Arlington is two towns. South of Lane Avenue — the Old Arlington historic district, the streets off Tremont and Cambridge, the river side along Riverside Drive — is 1918–1950 brick and stone: colonials, Tudors, Cape Cods, a lot of them with slate roofs, copper or galvanized half-round gutters on cast brackets, and box gutters built into the cornice on the biggest houses. North of Lane out to Henderson Road is 1950s–70s ranches and split-levels, mostly brick with aluminum K-style gutters that have been replaced once already and are due again.

Over all of it is the tree canopy that makes UA look the way it does: silver maples, red oaks, sycamores and elms planted when the streets were laid out, now 70 to 100 years old. They fill gutters fast, and the leaf calendar runs from the maples in October to the last oaks in early December.

Half-round and box gutters on the old houses

Half-round gutters carry less water than K-style of the same width, and the originals on Old Arlington homes are often 5-inch copper or galvanized steel that's been patched for decades. The right fix depends on what's there. Galvanized half-round with rust-through gets replaced with new half-round — aluminum or copper — on the existing bracket spacing, so the house looks the way it did. Copper with a split seam gets soldered, not caulked. Box gutters in the cornice get cleaned out, dried, and relined with new metal or a fluid-applied membrane; where the wood trough underneath has rotted, it's rebuilt first. A box gutter on a UA colonial should be quoted after someone has looked inside the trough, because that's where the cost lives.

Slate roofs change the work too. Nobody should walk on slate. Gutters under slate are hung and serviced from ladders with standoffs, and the drip edge and the last course of slate are left alone. If a roofer is coming to replace broken slates, the gutter work should happen the same week — ask the gutter contractor to coordinate with the roofer.

The north-of-Lane replacement

The 1950s–70s ranches between Lane and Henderson are a more ordinary job: aluminum K-style, usually the second set the house has had, with spike hangers and 2x3 downspouts. Replacement with seamless .032 aluminum, 3x4 downspouts and hidden hangers typically runs $1,500–$2,500 on a 160-foot ranch, usually in one day. Under the big maples on those streets it's worth pricing micro-mesh guards at the same time, because the installer is already on every foot of the run.

Basements and the old clay pipes

Old Arlington homes often have downspouts that drop into a clay tile at grade and disappear. Those tiles run to a dry well, to a storm drain, or, on the oldest streets, to the sewer — and after 90 years many of them are broken a few feet from the house, dumping water at the foundation. If the basement is wet at one corner, the tile at that corner is the first suspect. The usual fix is to cap it and redirect the downspout to a buried drain line or a pop-up emitter, typically $250–$600 per downspout and far cheaper than an interior waterproofing quote.

What to look for on an older house

Most problems on the historic streets can be spotted from the sidewalk or the driveway:

• Brackets and spacing. Half-round sits in cast or strap brackets. A bracket that has rusted through or pulled out of the wood leaves a low spot that holds water.
• Green or white streaks below a seam. On copper, that usually marks a joint that has opened and needs solder.
• Paint peeling on the cornice. On a house with box gutters, blistered paint or soft wood in the crown molding below the roof edge is the classic sign that the lining has failed and water is getting into the trough.
• Downspouts that end in the ground. Note which ones drop into a clay tile, and whether the basement is wet near any of them.
• Slate bits in the gutter. A few pieces after a storm mean a slate has broken above. That's a roofer's call, and worth making before the next freeze.

Restore, reline or replace

On the oldest homes the choice isn't just repair versus new. Copper that's sound except for a few seams can be soldered and kept for many more years. Galvanized half-round that has rusted through at the bottom is usually done, and new half-round on the same bracket spacing keeps the look. Box gutters can be relined if the wood is sound, rebuilt if it isn't, or, on some houses, replaced with hung gutters and a new cornice detail. That last option changes how the front of the house looks. If your home is in the Old Arlington historic district, check with the city's building department before changing anything visible from the street.

Questions to ask about older gutters

1. Have you worked on half-round, copper or box gutters before, and can I see photos?
2. Will you solder copper seams or seal them? (Solder is the right answer on copper.)
3. How will you get to the gutter without walking on the slate?
4. If the box gutter trough is rotted, how will you price the rebuild, and when will I know?
5. Where will the downspouts discharge if the old clay tile is capped?

Gutter services in Upper Arlington

• Gutter repair — resoldering copper, resealing corners, re-hanging after ice, box gutter relining
• Seamless replacement — K-style on the ranches, half-round on the historic homes
• Gutter guards — micro-mesh, the only guard that stops maple seeds
• Gutter cleaning — early December here, not October, because of the oaks
• Downspout drain lines — replacing broken clay tiles at the foundation

Nearby

The same advice applies to gutters in Upper Arlington's neighbors: Grandview Heights, Marble Cliff and the Columbus neighborhoods along the Olentangy (zip codes 43221 and 43220). Requests from here go to the same independent local contractor partner, who looks at the gutters and writes the quote.