Gutter Installation & Repair Services Raleigh NC
Gutters are the cheapest part of your building and the part most likely to cause an expensive problem. A clogged or undersized gutter dumps water against the fascia, into the soffit, down the wall and into the ground next to your foundation. By the time anyone notices, it is not a gutter repair anymore.
Red Letter Roofing installs and repairs gutters across Raleigh, Garner, Cary, Durham and Chapel Hill, on homes and commercial buildings. We treat the gutter as part of the roof system, not an accessory hung on the end of it.
What Failed Gutters Actually Cost
- Rotted fascia. Water overtopping the back edge soaks the fascia the gutter is fastened to. Once it is soft, hangers lose their grip and the run sags.
- Soffit damage. Water runs along the underside of the roof edge, stains and swells the soffit, and opens a path for squirrels and wasps into the attic.
- Roof edge rot. Water backing up under the drip edge rots the last few inches of decking, which is why so many roof replacements include edge decking work.
- Foundation and crawlspace problems. Concentrating a roof’s worth of water at the base of a wall gives you a wet crawlspace, efflorescence on block, and eventually settlement.
- Staining and erosion. Dark streaks, bare trenches under the drip line, mulch in the driveway.
Central North Carolina makes this worse than it has to be. The Triangle gets heavy rain in short bursts, and the tree canopy is relentless: pine needles, oak tassels and helicopter seeds, then a leaf drop that fills a gutter in a week.
Gutter Systems We Install
Seamless aluminum
The default, for good reason. We roll aluminum on site to the exact length of each run, so there are no joints mid-run to open and drip. It comes in a long list of baked enamel colors, will not rust, and lasts decades. Standard thickness is .027, and we recommend .032 on long runs, under heavy tree cover, and anywhere a ladder will lean on it.
Copper
Copper is genuinely different, not just more expensive. It needs no paint, outlasts the roof under it, and develops a patina many owners in older Raleigh and Chapel Hill neighborhoods want. Joints are soldered rather than sealed. Expect a substantial multiple of aluminum pricing.
Half-round
Half-round suits historic homes, tudor and craftsman architecture, and anything where a flat-faced K-style profile looks wrong. Available in aluminum and copper. It carries less water than a K-style gutter of the same nominal size, so sizing and downspout count matter more.
Steel and commercial box gutter
Galvanized and galvalume steel for commercial and agricultural buildings, plus box gutters built into the roof structure or parapet. Box gutters need a liner and correct slope, and are one of the details most likely to be leaking on an older building.
5-Inch vs 6-Inch: Getting the Size Right
Most Triangle homes have 5 inch K-style gutter, and on a lot of them that is not enough.
Sizing depends on how much roof area drains into the run, how steep the roof is, and how hard it rains here. A 6 inch gutter carries roughly 40 percent more water than a 5 inch, and it pairs with a 3×4 downspout instead of a 2×3, which moves far more than the extra inch suggests.
Go to 6 inch when:
- The pitch is steep, or a large area drains to one short run
- Valleys dump into the gutter, concentrating flow at one point
- Tree cover is heavy, since a larger trough clogs more slowly
- The gutter has overflowed before, the most reliable evidence of all
Going up a size is a small share of the job cost and permanently solves most chronic overflow.
Downspouts and Drainage
A gutter is only as good as where the water goes. We place downspouts so no run travels too far to an outlet, use 3×4 outlets on 6 inch systems, and oversize the outlet where a valley dumps in.
Getting water away from the building is the other half. Depending on the site we use extensions, buried solid pipe to a daylight outlet, splash blocks, or a tie-in to site drainage. We never tie downspouts into perforated pipe or a footing drain, which puts roof water back into the soil against your foundation.
Gutter Guards
Guards are worth it here for one reason: pine needles. The market is full of products that make things worse, so here is the plain version.
- Micro mesh keeps needles and grit out best, and needs brushing occasionally or it can shed water over the front.
- Reverse curve works on leaves and gets overwhelmed by a downpour or by needles sitting on the nose.
- Foam and brush inserts are cheap and hold debris inside the gutter where it composts. We do not recommend them.
- No guard is maintenance free. Guards reduce cleaning frequency. None eliminates it.
We install guards under the shingle course rather than screwing through the roof surface, and we will tell you whether they make sense for your tree cover.
Gutter Repair
Not everything needs replacement. Common repairs:
- Resloping and rehanging sagging runs, replacing spike-and-ferrule with hidden hangers
- Resealing end caps, miters and seams
- Replacing sections damaged by a limb strike or a ladder
- Adding downspouts or upsizing outlets on overflowing runs
- Correcting drip edge so water enters the gutter, not behind it
- Cleaning, flushing and clearing blocked downspouts
Fascia and Soffit Repair
If your gutter has been overflowing a while, the wood behind it is probably part of the job. We replace rotted fascia board, repair or replace damaged and vented soffit, and install aluminum fascia wrap where an owner wants to stop painting. We do it in the same visit, because pulling a new gutter back off later wastes everyone’s money. Where rot has reached the roof edge, we coordinate with roof repair.
Commercial Gutters and Scupper Systems
Low-slope roofs drain through internal drains, through-wall scuppers, or both, and the failure modes are not a house’s.
We fabricate and install heavy gauge commercial gutter and downspout, through-wall scuppers with proper sleeve and flange, collector heads and conductor pipe, and overflow scuppers set above the primary. We also correct what we find on existing buildings: scuppers too high to drain, primary and overflow at the same elevation, undersized conductor pipe, rusted collector boxes, failed box gutter liners. Where the real problem is ponding, the fix is tapered insulation and crickets. See commercial roofing.
Our Process
On site evaluation
We measure every run, check pitch, roof area and fascia condition, and see where water is going now.
Written proposal
Material, profile, size, color, hanger type, downspout count and locations, plus any fascia or soffit work, itemized.
Scheduling
Most residential gutter jobs take a single day.
Installation
Runs rolled on site, hidden hangers into solid wood, correct slope to outlets, sealed miters and end caps.
Water test and walkthrough
We run water through the system and walk it with you.
Why Red Letter
We are roofers first, and we have been at it here for years. We check the drip edge, edge decking, underlayment termination and attic ventilation while we are up there, and we will tell you if the gutter is a symptom rather than the cause. Our address is 1316 Bobbitt Drive in Garner and our crews are our own. If you are already planning residential roofing or roof replacement work, doing gutters at the same time is cheaper and gives a better eave detail.
Service Areas
Raleigh, Garner, Durham, Chapel Hill, Cary, Wake Forest, Carrboro, Morrisville, and 20+ North Carolina counties.
Gutter FAQ
How often should gutters be cleaned in the Triangle?
Twice a year at minimum, and three or four times with pines or large oaks over the roof. The two that matter most come after the needle and seed drop and after the leaves come down.
How much does gutter installation cost?
Seamless aluminum in this market typically runs from a few dollars to around ten dollars per linear foot installed, with 6 inch, .032 material, two story access and difficult roof lines pushing past the top of that range. Copper runs several times higher. Those are general ranges, not our quote.
My gutters overflow even though they are clean. Why?
Almost always undersizing, a blockage below the visible section, or a slope problem. Valleys dumping into a short 5 inch run are the classic Triangle version. The fix is a larger trough, a larger outlet, or another downspout.
Do you service commercial properties?
Yes. Around 85 percent of our work is commercial, including gutter, scupper, collector head and conductor pipe work.
Get a Gutter Quote
We will measure the building, tell you what size you actually need, and price any fascia work honestly.
Call (919) 977-5318 or request a free gutter estimate.